


Obstruction

by SubparLizard



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hawke and Anders friendship, Interspecies Relationship(s), Manipulation, Not quite as dark as that makes it sound, a handful of unsavory things will be touched on, captor/captive relationship, completed work, references to past non-con, references to past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4732517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubparLizard/pseuds/SubparLizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>9:35 Dragon: As tensions rise on the streets of Kirkwall, a hunt for a dangerous elven blood mage leads Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford out of the Gallows and into the wilds of the Free Marches.</p><p>His quest to bring the criminal to justice brings Cullen face to face and head to head with Lavellan of the Dalish, an arrogant, unyielding woman hellbent on protecting her clan and people. The situation only gets more complicated when Cullen takes Lavellan prisoner— will the hunter or the Knight-Captain break first?</p><p>Meanwhile, Hawke and Anders go through the trash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Obstruction of Routine

Knight-Captain Cullen stood before the desk of Aveline Vallen, the Captain of the Guard. He rather liked Aveline on a professional level— she was punctual, direct, and hardworking. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t sort of terrified of her. “You want me to put out a bulletin to the people of Kirkwall to be on the lookout for a _blood mage_?” She narrowed her eyes, and Cullen wondered if she or Meredith possessed more frightening intensity.

It was only Tuesday, but it had been a terrible week at the Gallows. Any week that contained a multiple murder was a terrible week, Cullen supposed, but this one was especially trying.

“It’s of utmost importance,” Cullen said. “Do you want this person loose on the streets?”

At least the murder, committed by a dangerous apostate that he had been personally charged with apprehending, had come on the heels of the news that three mages the Circle had executed for treason for corresponding by code with Tevinter magisters who wanted to liberate the Circle were not, in fact, corresponding by code with Tevinter magisters who wanted to liberate the Circle but instead were attempting to order rare alchemical ingredients— the immediate need to catch the escapee allowed Cullen to dwell less on the three most recent of the wrongfully dead. Being made to entreat the Captain of the already overtaxed Guard was almost a relief.

Captain Vallen shook her head, her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t saying that it was unimportant, Knight-Captain. A loose blood mage would incite a damned panic. Can we call her a dangerous murderer instead? Tell the public not to engage?”

“Calling her a murderer would not be inaccurate,” Cullen answered. He’d spent most of the morning overseeing the cleanup of the brains of three templars and the shredded, ripped mess of a Circle robe off the walls of the Gallows— the woman suspected of the crime had blown through a 5-foot thick wall at the edge of the building and had disappeared down the rocks and into the water. The only survivor of the attack had said he’d seen her using blood magic, and the drying rust-red spatters on the floor by where she had been standing seemed to corroborate the story.

The redheaded warrior nodded and looked down at the colored sketches Cullen had handed her, all of a mousy-looking elf girl who the portrait artist had taken great lengths to make look downright miserable. “Lisle, this says. Andraste, she looks so young. Does she have any family in Kirkwall?”

“No. She’s Orlesian, transferred here from the White Spire. There was an… _incident_ with a templar there. He was found culpable and removed from duty, but she supposedly wanted a change of scenery after the trauma.”

“So she was sent to Kirkwall. An unlucky one,” Captain Vallen said.

Cullen could not disagree with her. “Unlucky or not, she killed three of my men and another mage— a woman named Maeva was vaporized in the blast. Some of the mages recognized a single shoe of hers.” At first, they had suspected that the Maeva woman was an accomplice, but upon checking her phylactery, the blood in it had lost its shine and had dried in the vial, a sure sign of the mage’s death. “We can’t rest while Lisle is at large.”

The Captain slipped the papers into a folder on her desk, but frowned at Cullen. “I’ll get these reproduced by tomorrow. What about those blood things? Phylacteries? Can’t you templars track them with those?" 

“She managed to corrupt hers with blood magic, somehow,” Cullen said. It was only partially true— Lisle’s still weakly pointed in her direction, but was subject to bouts of confusion. Regardless of the remaining functionality of the vial, any degree of corruption of a phylactery was enough to concern the Order— their main method of tracking escaped Circle mages was suddenly fallible.

“Wonderful,” Captain Vallen exhaled. “Is that all, Knight-Captain, or do you have more of Meredith’s bidding to do here?” She shot him a sharp, tight-lipped glance.

Just then came a knock at the door. “Aveline, the pastry wagon is here,” a voice that sounded conspicuously like the Champion of Kirkwall’s rang.

Cullen turned to face the entrance, and in it stood Marian Hawke along with her disheveled blonde friend. The fellow was probably a mage (and one he’d seen before, too— maybe at Kinloch? Cullen did not like to think of Kinloch), Cullen knew, and his arrest had been discussed amongst the templar brass many a time. It was deemed imprudent for the already unpopular templars to attack someone in the beloved Champion’s inner circle of friends, however, so the blonde man remained at large.

The almost-definitely-mage jumped at the sight of Cullen, and immediately stared straight at the floor.

“Hawke. Anders.” Aveline waved the two in, and Hawke tossed a glazed bun from a large paper bag across the room at her. She caught it and bit into it. “It’s stale,” she said.

“Of course it’s stale,” Hawke laughed. “How else am I supposed to get the whole bag for a copper?

“You don’t live in Lowtown anymore, Hawke,” the Captain said between bites, eating the pastry despite her complaints. “You can get yourself better sweets. Thank you anyways.”

“Would you like a pastry, Knight-Captain?” Hawke tilted her head and smiled broadly. “You look like you could use some sugar.” She winked one of her sharp blue eyes almost obscenely, and Cullen felt his cheeks grow warm.

“N-no thank you,” Cullen hoped that she did not notice the color of his face changing.

“So what’re you doing here?” Hawke asked.

“He was leaving,” Captain Vallen replied. It seemed more of a directive than a statement.

Cullen figured he could ask Hawke for help— though she’d made troubling statements about the freedom of mages before and kept what seemed like a small hoard of apostates in tow, she had also been an ally to the Circle in its times of need. “The templars are looking for an escaped mage, and we are seeking the Guard's help."

“Good for the mage.” The man called Anders brimmed with contempt. “I hope they got far.”

“Yes, better that a murderous blood mage isn’t in Kirkwall at all,” Cullen shot back.

Anders rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He was either very brave or very stupid, Cullen decided. “You people say every mage is a blood mage.” As irritating and inflammatory as this Anders was, Cullen did quite like the feathered pauldrons he wore. He’d probably go in that direction if he could choose his uniform.

Commendable fashion-sense aside, Cullen was annoyed with Hawke’s companion. “You’re welcome to come to the Circle and see the mess they left yourself.” Anders paled a little, and Cullen thought himself quite clever for the line. “She killed four people by disemboweling them, a fifth is badly injured and probably won’t last the night if the healers don’t find a way to keep him together. Captain Vallen has a portrait and what information we have of her, if you’re interested in helping. We can offer coin or—“

Hawke had worriedly turned to Anders and had begun massaging his shoulder through his coat with the hand that wasn’t carrying the bag of tarts as soon as Cullen had offered him a trip to the Gallows. “Mmm… maybe.”

“We’re finding her, Hawke,” Anders said abruptly and desperately. He had continued to blanch in horror throughout Cullen’s description of her crimes, despite Hawke’s physical attempts to comfort him, and suddenly seemed less than interested in preserving the freedom of the runaway. “If she kills any more people, everyone will think all mages are like that and use it as a reason to—“ 

Hawke sighed, and smiled at her friend, squeezing his forearm slightly. “Of course, Anders. Let me see the papers, Aveline.” She walked further into the office, away from the door. Cullen used the opening left by her movement to exit, Anders avoiding him by a wide berth as he passed by.

The next morning at the Gallows, Cullen prepared himself to follow the weak and tenuous trail that Lisle’s phylactery provided. Knight-Commander Meredith had demanded that he resolve the issue quickly, and personally— she had claimed that she believed it had been part of a conspiracy in the Gallows and only Cullen could be trusted. He privately wondered when Meredith would deem it necessary to do everything herself. 

Until then, Cullen was eager to accept her commands to get away from the Gallows. If he could perform his duty elsewhere, he would be pleased to do so. Hardly a day passed by that did not involve a horrific mistake or some sort of manmade terror fashioned by his brothers and sisters in arms. He doubted anyone in the place had clean hands. He knew very well that he did not.

Lisle was off to the northwest somewhere, the phylactery indicated. His small bundle was nearly filled— he had a few changes of clothes, basic supplies for first aid, a large canteen and other miscellaneous necessities for field missions, and a week’s supply of lyrium and the tools necessary to administer his injections.

Cullen checked his armor and exited his quarters to wait for the others he was leaving with. On his way through the hallways, an enchanter hurried to catch up with him, her feet echoing in the dusty halls of the Gallows.

“Knight-Captain Cullen,” called the Champion’s sister as she jogged lightly, her robes gathered in her hands, “A word, if you would.”

Cullen stopped and turned to face his fellow Fereldan. She seemed worried and exhausted, panting as she caught the templar a long, dusty hallway on his way out of the fortress. “What is it, Bethany?” he asked.

“It’s about Lisle,” Bethany said. “I… I know what she’s done is inexcusable, and that she’s killed people, but if there’s any room for leniency…”

“ _Leniency?_ Giving blood mages leniency—“

“Is bad,” Bethany interrupted. She seemed as if she was having a hard time asserting herself, but exhaled softly and continued. “I guess that leniency isn’t the right word. But I think Lisle felt she had no other option. Ah, Maker… you see, she and Maeva, one of the victims, were lovers.”

Cullen almost rolled his eyes, and he had to suppress a groan. Bethany tended to be sound of mind and had displayed, by all standards, excellent conduct in her time in the Circle. He had not expected her to sympathize with a murderer just because there may have been a romantic motivation— he hoped she would addend her statement with something that made it less ludicrous.

“Lisle and I were friends, and for months she’s been unhappy. Fairly recently, she told me she was _afraid_ of Maeva. I didn’t think it was blood magic or anything like that, so I didn’t report it to the templars.” She rubbed her arm slightly, seemingly nervous that Cullen would scold her for her silence. In reality, Cullen found her discretion understandable, if not unfortunate and dangerous. “I guess…I mean, I didn’t… I thought Maeva was hitting Lisle. Serious, but personal. That’s how she made it sound, anyways. I was trying to convince Lisle to talk to First Enchanter Orsino about it. I thought that maybe he could…” she trailed off, and shook her head with a sad sigh. “Well, I guess Maeva wasn’t the one we had to worry about.”

“Thank you for the information, Bethany.” Cullen attempted to keep a perturbed expression from his face. If one mage was abusing another, why hadn’t the templars noticed, especially with the heightened surveillance in the Gallows as of late? The supervision was for the mages’ protection as much as anyone else’s. “I’m unsure if it will be of any use.”

Bethany sighed. “I figured that might be so. Maker protect you, Knight-Captain,” said the younger Hawke sister, and Cullen could not determine if there was any threat in the mage’s voice.

Regardless of whatever truly unfortunate things had transpired between Lisle and her victim, she was still a blood mage and multiple murderer, and he would bring her to justice. It was the least Cullen could do right.


	2. Obstruction of Water Flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an attempt to find a clue, Hawke and Anders take to the sewers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to publish this and chapter 3 at the same time because i feel like it gets most of the exposition/setup out of the way, and then probably try and publish once every 2-3 days. i don't have to go back to class for another month, and my internship finished, so i have a lot of time on my hands right now.
> 
> feedback is appreciated-- i have all of this written, but it's still subject to edits.
> 
> as a heads up, there are descriptions of past abuse in this chapter.

Hawke and Anders jumped from the dry pipe onto a rocky outcropping in the reservoir. A small stream of moving water trickled through the middle of the Darktown cistern, but most of the damp chamber was piled with the splinters of broken furniture and the mildewed remains of discarded wardrobes. 

“Look,” Hawke said, using the blade of her dagger to skewer and lift the severed head of an already creepy storefront mannequin, “this sewer is almost as shitty and decrepit as Fenris’s house.”

“You’re not telling Fenris about the blood mage, are you?” Anders asked. To Hawke, he looked ridiculous with his robes tucked into his knee-high boots, and he plunged into the dark water that lapped at his mid-calves. “He’ll never shut up about it. As soon as it gets out that there’s a blood mage on the loose, no one will.”

Hawke, also in waterproof boots, followed him down into the water of the cistern. “Until further notice, she's just a depraved serial murder to everyone but us, Anders,” she reassured the mage. “I can’t believe the templars just tossed what was left of Lisle’s chamber into the waste— there could have been leads. Haven’t they read _Hard in Hightown_?” Hawke joked. “The stuff shouldn’t be too far from the pipe, they only junked it yesterday.”

“It’s because templars are stupid,” Anders said. “Or maybe we’re the stupid ones for trudging around in a sewer. I really can’t tell.” He waved his hands in the air, and several floating balls of light appeared from thin air and began to lazily circle the two, illuminating the chamber.

“Wow, it’s even grosser when it’s well-lit,” Hawke observed of the dripping tunnel, continuing to use her blade to sift through the debris. “This is impressive.”

“Hey!” Anders exclaimed, and Hawke whirled around to face him.

“Did you find something?” she asked, excited that her friend had so quickly discovered a clue.

“I found something all right,” he said, incredulously prodding at a large stack of papers with his staff. “It’s my manifesto! All thirty copies I had printed for distribution! Who would throw this away?”

Hawke let out a deep sigh. “I told you that you needed to edit it more, Anders.”

“No,” Anders replied, “ _Varric_ told me I needed to edit it more. You said something different. The exact words were ‘This is terrible. I agree with most of it, and I think it’s terrible.’”

“Oh, that _was_ what I said. Silly me.” Hawke shrugged. “Are you really that surprised about finding it in the garbage, then?”

The blonde mage huffed. “I thought you were just being _mean_.” 

The two of them continued to sift through the sewage, finding little other than multitudinous piles of Kirkwall’s uninteresting waste. “Aw, a river otter,” Anders said as he prodded through a matted pile of clothing with the bladed end of his staff, pointing with his free hand to a furry blob making ripples as it forged its way through the mire. “Wait, no, that’s just a really big rat.”

“Eee,” Hawke grimaced at the rodent. After a few moments of watching him work in frustration, Hawke asked her apostate friend, “You’re really taking this whole blood mage thing personally, aren’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Blood magic is bad news as it is. It’s going to bite Merrill one day, wait and see. But people who use it to kill… Murderers like that woman just make mages look like monsters.” A familiar darkness clouded Anders. “We don’t need to help the templars and the Chantry do that. I say we handle her ourselves before she hurts anyone innocent.”

A tinge of worry crossed Hawke’s eyes. While she was no stranger to the rumors of horrific abuses in the Gallows, she was unnerved by Anders’ willingness to immediately see the templar casualties as guilty parties. She wondered how the situation with the spirit of Justice was going for him— she had frankly expected Anders to burst out in a glowing blue rage when Knight-Captain Cullen had offered to escort him to the Gallows. 

While Hawke had seen enough to abhor and distrust the Order as a whole, there were many fine men such as Knight-Captain Cullen among the ranks, and many innocent young men and women fresh from training who only sought to protect their friends and families. The only thing she could think to say was, “Another mage died in the blast, too.”

Anders lifted a soggy mound with his staff blade. “Look, I think this is a wig. Or was one.” The moment of darkness had passed, Hawke saw, and she went about her own searching. Anders continued talking as Hawke wandered away from him. “Wet tunnel. Moist chamber. Sopping passage. You know, all the words to describe this place are rather…”

“Yonic?” Hawke absentmindedly laughed as she zeroed in on an abnormally and conspicuously dry journal floating near a pile of splintered furniture.

“Does that word mean what I think it does?” Anders asked. 

Hawke did not answer him, but instead bent to pick up the journal. It read ‘ _LISLE’_ on the cover, she noticed as she raised the book to her face. “I think I’ve found something, Anders.” 

The mage splashed over to join her, but Hawke was disappointed when she opened the journal. “There’s nothing here. Never mind."

Anders did not seem to be let down by the empty pages. “Can I take a look at it?”

She flipped the book over to him. “Knock yourself out.”

“Just what I thought,” Anders murmured after examining the journal for a few seconds. He hummed slightly, and tapped the book with two fingers. The opened page rippled a minty green for a moment, and words embossed themselves into the paper with a magical glimmer. “It’s sympathetic ink,” he explained. “You’ve got to know exactly how to get it to light up to ever see it— we’re lucky that I’m an expert. We used to use this all the time to pass dirty messages in my old Circle.”

“The one where everyone was kissing everyone?” Hawke giggled as she clapped lightly for him.

Anders sighed. “That was the one up-side of the place, wasn’t it?” He began to leaf through the pages. “Uh-oh,” he said. “This seems bad.”

“Let me see.” Hawke nudged the mage slightly to peer at the book in his hand, but Anders began to read aloud.

“ _Diary, today was worse than ever_ ,” he read. “ _Maeva’s in one of her phases again. She keeps saying terrible things to me. I want to believe they’re not true. I know Mama loved me. I know what happened at the White Spire wasn’t my fault. I know the others talking behind my back, calling me names…maybe Claryns is a bit shifty, but at least Bethany wouldn’t do that. What I know should be enough, shouldn’t it?_ I guess she knows your little sister, Hawke.”

Hawke raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad that Bethany isn’t allowing a little thing like blood magic to stop her from making friends.”

Anders continued to read from the journal. “ _But that’s it. When I tell Maeva this, she calls me stupid. Says I can’t think straight. Maybe it’s true, though. Maybe Mama did call the templars on me. Maybe I did ask for what happened. Maybe I’m stupid. It doesn’t matter. Maeva loves me anyways, even if she yells at me sometimes. She wouldn’t risk being in this sort of relationship if she didn’t_.” Anders frowned deeply. “Poor girl. I almost feel bad for her.”

“What else does it say?” Hawke prodded. “Does it say where she would go if she cut and ran? Since, you know, she cut herself, did some blood magic, and ran away."  
  
Anders flipped a few pages ahead. “ _Diary, Maeva hit me again. ‘Hitting’ makes it sound like she did it once. She took me to one of the empty study rooms and beat me. I’m more and more afraid of her every day. I told her to leave me alone, but she won’t. She’ll just come in my room, and I’ll say no, but that doesn’t stop her from doing what she does._ ” Both Hawke and Anders cringed, but the mage kept reading aloud. “ _She always knows where I am. I have nowhere to go. I’m trapped here. I can’t go to the templars. I would do anything to stop it. I need to defend myself._ ”

“We…might have a motive for the blood magic,” Hawke suggested.

“The other woman sounds much worse than Lisle,” Anders said. “I almost… hm… never mind. It’s really said it ended in such a way.”

The tone of the writing soured and became terser as Anders continued reading. “ _Maeva hit me again. Again again again again again again I could write it so many more times but it just all starts to sound the same and I can’t deal with it but I didn’t tell anyone. What’s the point._

_“Bethany gave me a knife that she got smuggled in. Feel rotten. Shouldn’t risk things for me but she says I should use it to defend myself. Never mind that anymore. I’m going to kill Maeva I hate her so much I’ve never hated anyone like this. Not even the templar back home. He didn’t tell me he loved me as he forced himself on me, not like Maeva does. Sometimes I believe it not now though no I don’t. Soon I can be free and free of this place and free of everything and I will never have to be afraid again.”_

Anders grimaced again, but beckoned one of the floating lights closer, and he flipped dedicatedly through the pages, skimming over the accounts of myriad abuses. “Oh! This might be something.” He cleared his throat and began to read. “ _Back in the alienage in Val Chevin, Mama would tell me about my father. She said he was a Dalish man_ ,” Anders read. “ _Sometimes, I dream about running away and joining them. Maybe it’s not so good I hear they live in the woods. It sounds rough, but anything’s better than here. I wonder if the Dalish will take me if I go to them. I’ll have to leave the Circle anyways, then. She will be dead and I will be free._ ” Anders looked up from the journal at Hawke. “Do you think we have a lead?”

Hawke nodded. “It’s definitely worth a shot. Let’s go have a talk with Marethari. If Lisle's not with her, she might know where other clans are.”


	3. Obstruction of Diplomacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen discovers that the blood mage has taken refuge with the Dalish, and plans to resolve the situation peacefully.
> 
> This goes terribly wrong.

Though the field outpost dedicated to patrolling the area far to the northwest of Kirkwall was technically under the direct control of Meredith and the Gallows, the templars stationed there had not seen real oversight in months, perhaps years. Upon arriving at the keep, Cullen was forced to wonder whether he would spend more time catching blood mages or doing an administrative check-up on the wayward station. 

The small templar fortress, the seat of some forgotten lord dispossessed by the Order in the Storm Age, sat on a bluff and bore the uninspired name of Highstone Hold. Cullen had reached the outpost after a hard week’s ride out of Kirkwall was not only ill-stocked, but in a state of disrepair, its walls crumbling and its wood beginning to rot. Upon surveying the inventory of the hold, Cullen had immediately demaded the Knight-Captain in charge, a slim and surly woman named Jennah, ride back to Kirkwall to restock the medical implements, clerical supplies, and sundry other goods. At least they had a decent supply of lyrium.

Though nominally, his rank was the same as Knight-Captain Jennah’s, Cullen’s centralized position and role as Meredith’s second in command gave him clear authority over anyone stationed at Highstone. He could feel the entire outpost’s resentment and distrust, as could the templars he brought with him from Kirkwall, who grumbled quietly about being surrounded by ‘hicks’ from ‘Bumblefuck, Nowhere’ who probably ‘wouldn’t know an apostate if one ran up and set fire to their collective ass.’ Cullen had only lightly chastised his men for these unprofessional remarks, mostly because he thought them to be sort of true himself.

Despite the professional nightmare the trip was shaping up to be, Cullen had to admit that the wilderness that surrounded Highstone Hold was quite beautiful, the sort of landscape that he and his brothers had played at exploring as boys as they romped through thickets with wooden swords. To the northwest of Kirkwall was a frontier where the Vimmark Mountains met the Planasene Forest, a breathtaking green expanse filled with tree-covered mountains, gorges brimming with mist, and crystalline waterfalls pouring into otherwise sleepy pools. The ride in would have been relaxing, immersing the riders in the quiet emerald expanses and the white stretch of the sky, if not for the dire circumstances.

The phylactery had become confused and erratic in its behavior, leading Cullen to think that Lisle was in the general area. At least, he hoped she was. If the phylactery was just going on the fritz, then Cullen was doomed in his quest. As lovely as he found the area’s nature, he realized the obstacles that faced him in its exploration— the rugged and steep terrain made it impossible for horses in some areas and the trees obstructed the view in almost every direction. At least sylvans weren’t native to this part of the Marches, Cullen supposed.

The first day of searching turned out very little. On foot, Cullen hiked along a sharp incline with three of his own men and another six of the Highstone templars. “And we’ll have a good view from the top of the ridge?” Cullen asked, trudging up the sloped forest floor. His armor weighed heavily on him, and he wished for nothing more than to return to his quarters in the crumbling keep for the evening. Duty, however, drove him onwards. He still had some time until sunset. 

“You doubt us, Knight-Captian?” asked one of the Highstone men, a bearded man called Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow. He seemed to be a good deal older than Cullen, but spoke to the young Knight-Captain as he would an impertinent child. “You’ll see the whole river valley from the top of that. We out here send scouts up on the regular.”

Cullen suppressed a sigh. The response to almost all of his questions had been similarly rude. “That’s not what I… ugh, never mind,” he said, attempting to swallow his irritability.

“Didn’t intend to mind you,” Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow said, grinning smugly. Cullen could tell that Yarrow found himself quite clever, and suppressed a groan. If Cullen hadn’t been walking uphill for over half the day, he would have turned to scold Yarrow for lack of deference to a superior officer. Cullen was exhausted, however, and did not want to trek back in a hostile party, especially not with the Kirkwall templars as worn as they were from the unfamiliar activity of hiking. Yet he noticed that the Highstone men fared no better than his own cadre on the hills that were supposedly their native environment. The realization was somewhat troubling to Cullen.

“Let’s just try to get up and back before nightfall,” Cullen said. It was early autumn, the cool wind nipping lightly instead of biting. Only a few of the leaves beginning to yellow slightly amongst overwhelmingly lush green boughs, and the days were still long and good for searching. Cullen wondered how far Lisle could have gotten— he supposed she must have used her day’s head start to its full advantage and also somehow procured a horse at some point.

Finally, the party reached the top of the ridge. It did provide quite a view down the river valley, and Cullen unlatched a collapsing spyglass from his belt and unfolded its long metal tube. Before he could raise it to his eye, one of his own troops, a woman with curly hair who had recently transferred from Cumberland, pointed. “What’s that? With all the fires. I thought there weren’t people out here.” 

“Hunters from the villages a while off,” Yarrow said. “Or perhaps it’s the fucking _elves_. We’ve tangled with those Dalish monsters before— gotta whole logbook of the sightings and scrapes, if you wanna see.”

Cullen ignored Yarrow outwardly, but took note of his words. “Good eye, Ser Lia.” He trained a small, collapsible spyglass that he carried in a pouch on his belt on the encampment, and could make out the Dalish landships and several white blurs that could only be the strange deer they kept— hanna? halla? He looked further amongst the people, little moving dots with hardly discernable limbs and finally caught the unmistakable blues and downy whites of a Circle robe. “I have a visual on the mage. What is she doing with the Dalish?”

“Lisle is one of their kind,” Lia said. “The Dalish’ll take in any elf who wants to live with them. Used to be a big problem at the last Circle I served. Literally all our elven escapees would just go straight to the clans. Are we going to engage the Dalish, Knight-Captain? They’re nasty, and we just let them have our runaways and apostates. It’s usually not worth a fight— they’re blighted good marksmen.” There was some admiration in her voice.

“We’re going to inform them that they’re harboring a blood mage,” Cullen replied. “I have a feeling that they would willingly give her up if they just knew—”

One of the Highstone men laughed. “Oh, they know what they’re doing. The more humans one of their filthy lot’s killed, the better.”

“We take a diplomatic approach,” Cullen’s harsh response was more of a reproach than a plan, “and take no casualties from this. Will that camp be there tomorrow?” 

Yarrow shrugged. “You’re acting like those beasts act with rhyme, reason, or logic. Diplomacy’s probably much for them.”

“Then we make contact tonight,” Cullen decided. “Ser Lia, get me fifteen men from the outpost and meet us at the river bend. We’ll need to go in force, just in case.” Growing up in Honnleath, Cullen had heard more than a few horror stories about the threatening tattooed wanderers that sometimes passed outside the village limits, shady, skulking, and ever wary as they peered at the humans across the rolling fields of wheat. He had no wish to fight with them, and worried that a larger military party might startle the elves.

Cullen never had a chance to adjust the size of his force for optimal bargaining strength, however. When the remaining eight templars reached the riverbend, there was a small delegation of Dalish hunters waiting for them.

Cullen counted seven elves— he figured that his men might win in an altercation, but it was likely that the templars would take casualties, especially at the hands of the three archers that stood ready on the rocks at the back of the bank, glaring at him from behind their snaking tattoos and beaded armor. 

Their seeming leader, an imposing woman with a crooked nose and a claymore strapped across her back, was unguarded, alone at the front of the group. The three other elves flanked her at a distance, their daggers and shortswords drawn.

“That’s a big damn elf,” he heard one of the Highstone men mumble, and Cullen could not disagree— she was maybe the tallest elf he had ever seen. Definitely the tallest female elf, at least. The broad-shouldered woman could almost look him straight in the eye, he noticed, and he mentally prepared himself for an attack as he noticed her coming closer to him.

“ _Aneth ara_ , Knight-Captain,” she said, extending a hand to Cullen. He wondered how she knew his rank— perhaps the elves had been watching them?

Cullen did not take it, but instead stared intently at the green tattoos that sprawled across her freckled face and into her hairline where the lines were obscured by not even a quarter inch of already thick brown hair. 

“Humans shake hands, don’t they, Ser Templar?” the elf asked, her hand still outstretched as she took yet another step towards the delegation of templars. “I usually get a better response to this.”

Yarrow’s hand immediately floated to his blade, but Cullen caught the action in his periphery and flung his arm out to prevent him from drawing. Cullen glared at Yarrow and motioned brusquely at the archers, who had already knocked arrows in anticipation of a fight.

To diffuse the hostility that the sudden motions had stirred, Cullen spoke. “You speak often to humans? Your people tend to not interact with ours.”

The tall elf shrugged, but Cullen could see her large dark eyes raking the men for any source of danger— she was ready to draw at a moment’s notice, and Cullen knew he would have to be, too. “Clan Lavellan seeks to be… _proactive_ in our relationships with humans. Communication, cooperation, trade, other things. It earns us more parts for our _aravels_ , your people a few Dalish-made weapons, and both of us less corpses. So. Handshake?”

She extended her hand again, and this time Cullen took it. “A pleasure,” he said as her gauntlet clasped with his firmly. 

“Likewise, Knight-Captain.”

“We intended to meet with you civilly,” Cullen said as the templars behind him shifted nervously.

“And that’s what we’re doing right now,” the elf with the claymore answered.

“We appreciate it,” Cullen was relieved that it seemed that the situation would not turn to violence.

“Then tell me, Knight-Captain,” the elf said, “what can Clan Lavellan do for you?” She gave what seemed like a genuine smile, an expression that gave Cullen some pause. There was something particular about her, he thought, and it set him at unease. And the way she said ‘Knight-Captain’... it was, well… it was _something_.

Cullen was glad for the segue to the matters at hand. The sun had long since sunk below the tree line, and the sky was beginning to glow purple, reflecting in the meandering river that ran alongside the meeting. As oddly friendly as the elves were being, Cullen was not looking forward to being in the dark woods with the hunters. “We are from the Kirkwall Circle, and are hunting an escaped blood mage. She is very dangerous and has killed multiple times. We have reason to believe she is in your camp and would request that you turn her over, not only for our convenience but for your own safety.”

“Reason to believe?” the elf asked. “And what reason would that be?”

“We saw her.” Cullen did not want to play any games.

The elf turned her head back to her group of hunters, and a few of them gave her small nods. “Well, then. Your mage is with us, and she’ll stay with us, if she’s dedicated to living in the Old Ways. I suggest you go back to Kirkwall, Knight-Captain.”

A small racket of consternation went up amongst the templars. “I don’t think you understand,” Cullen said, an edge creeping into his voice. “She’s a blood mage.”

The tall elf shook her head. “She’s told us of the accusation, and purports to have never used blood magic. Our Keeper believes that she is telling the truth, and will be watching her closely. Clan Lavellan takes full responsibility for your Lisle— from here on out, any blood on her hands will be blood on ours. We swear it.”

Cullen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Your responsibility means nothing,” he said. “The instant that woman becomes an abomination—“

“Is the instant she will find her head severed from her shoulders,” the elf finished, a smirk dancing across her lips. Cullen found it to be an arrogant gesture— how could she be so assured about handling abominations? Then again, the woman before him radiated nothing but arrogance as she postured before nine heavily armed knights. The unwarranted assurance irked Cullen.

Venom laced Cullen’s voice as he struggled to stay professional. “Your words betray a lack of understanding. We are going to have to ask you to turn the mage in, with a threat of military action for noncompliance,” he wasn’t sure how to address the elven woman, but his irritation with her gave way to excessive politeness, “my Lady.”

“No,” she said. “Is this all?”

“As a representative of the Templar Order, defenders of the Chantry of Andraste, I demand—“

She scoffed, her eyebrows rising with an odd energy. “You demand what, Knight-Captain? Your Order has no sovereignty over the Dalish. We do not recognize your prophet or your Maker. We are the keepers of the Old Way, the protectors of The People of Elvhenan, and if you think for a moment that we will turn over an _elf_ to you—”

With an explosive swear in elvish that Cullen could not understand, one of the archers let an arrow fly. It streamed past Cullen’s party and hit its target with a sick _thwack_ , embedding itself in Ser Lia’s head. She crumbled to the ground at front of the backup troops that had been swiftly approaching the meeting, and the rest of them immediately unsheathed their blades and began to rush toward the riverbank from the forest.

Well, here was the fight that Cullen hadn’t wanted, and he let out a loud groan. “In formation!” Cullen commanded, and the men with him, who had been suddenly found themselves in the role of a vanguard, quickly readied their shields and drew back slightly to bolster the reinforcements’ onslaught. 

“The templars’re ambushing us!” the archer yelled, and the rest of the Dalish readied their weapons with more angry words in their own language. “This is what we get for talking to the _shemlen, adahlen_! _Fen’Harel ma ghilana_!” “ _Dirthara-ma!_ ” “We should’ve killed them immediately…” the elves clamored, often with words that Cullen could not understand.

Cullen did understand the elf with the claymore’s swear, however. “Fuck,” she said, drawing her weapon as she looked rapidly between the six elves that were with her and the twenty-four templars bearing down. “Run!” she yelled, her claymore out in front of her. One of the men Lia had brought swung his longsword out at her, but she parried the blow and threw him off balance. “Run and tell them to move the camp! Now!”

“ _Lethallan_ —“ one called out to her, but she shook her head.

“I know where you’ll be! Go!” 

The elves began to disappear into the woods.

“Chase them!” Cullen yelled, and immediately all but four of the men dispersed to chase the hunters into the tree line. 

For a moment, Cullen thought the leader would turn too, but the tall elf instead stayed facing the templars within the clearing along the river, whipping a long metal chain out to snap at the feet of anyone who attempted to run after the retreating hunters. She was covering them, he realized, and sacrificing herself to do it. The four remaining templars and Cullen rushed to immediately converge on the woman.

Her stand on the bank lasted longer than Cullen expected. She was almost instantly relieved of the chain, one templar pinning it uselessly into the sand with his pronged axe. She abandoned it and went on the defensive with her claymore— parrying blows with a determined fervor and using the rocks at the edge of the riverbed and the wide arc of her massive blade to ensure she could not be flanked, or even approached.

Cullen temporarily drew back to assess the situation and catch his breath. He saw what she was doing: she was backing off to a point where the natural features would more easily allow her to cut and run. Ahead, Cullen saw the river branch, and a creek that worked its way downhill through a tight spot in the rocks—if the men pursued her, they would have to take chase one by one through the ravine. She probably could sprint to it safely it at the current point, too, if she abandoned her weapon and its cumbersome weight. She seemed unwilling to do that, though, and swung her sword again, the men hedging and shrinking behind their shields with each _whoosh_ ing stroke.

Cullen debated attempting to mount the rock wall and jump on her from above, but he had a better idea. Unlashing the unused shield from his back, he dropped his sword and rushed into the fray and immediately threw himself and the painted oaken sheet between the men and her blade, bracing his defense with both hands.

The shield did its part as it splintered, throwing the elf off balance as her momentum was denied its intended pathway. Cullen struggled to maintain his own footing as he abandoned the remaining shards and dived forth unarmed onto the elf.

The claymore crashed to the ground with a reverberating thud as she inadvertently released it, and Cullen was met with a barrage of fists and curses as the two of them tumbled to the sand of the riverbed, struggling for dominance. The elf attempted to flip him off of her, but despite her size relative to the other Dalish, she was still smaller than Cullen, and in much lighter armor. With no help from the other templars, Cullen managed to pin her to the ground, free one of his gauntleted hands, and knock her unconscious with a series of jabs to her face.

Her head lolled to the side after Cullen was finished, and for a moment, he thought she might be dead. As his heart rate calmed and he sat atop the slumped woman in silence, he began to feel her gently breathing as blood began to trickle weakly from her newly-split bottom lip onto her chin. 

A voice broke the serene noises of the burbling river. “You got her, Knight-Captain?”

“No thanks to you.” Cullen stood upright in the cold sunset, wiping wet sand from his armor. The elven woman’s skill at battle had no doubt aided her in the struggle, but the prolonged altercation was almost entirely the fault of the incompetence of the Highstone templars. Cullen’s rage exploded as he surveyed them standing dumbly upon the bank. “Who taught you men how to use a shield?! You were nearly bested by a single combatant. Tomorrow we’re training as soon as dawn breaks— that blighted performance was an embarrassment to the Order! 

A different man spoke, pointing at the unconscious elf with his blade. “What’re we going to do with her, ser? Do we kill her?”

Cullen looked down at the woman sprawled limply in the sand, and remembered her adamant refusal to comply. She would likely only be trouble if he let her live. Yet she was too valuable, as a source of information, and as a hostage. “No, we take her alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter published today.
> 
> have a lovely labor day, if you're in a place that celebrates it!


	4. Obstruction of Cordiality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much to Cullen's chagrin, Lavellan remains uncooperative and antagonistic.

Cullen arose the next morning before dawn only to realize that he had taken more damage in the fight against the elf than he had thought— the shattering shield had sprayed him with splinters. He observed himself by candlelight in the dirtied looking glass in his room, hazel eyes staring intently back from the mirror. He quickly combed his blonde curls back into a more tamed position with his fingers— he remembered being made fun of as a recruit for his “pretty, girlish” hair by the other trainees.

Despite the jabbing, Cullen honestly missed his training days. He’d been different then, high on idealism and the promise of standing tall as a protector in the face of arcane evils. He’d spent the previous evening on the wrong side (or perhaps it was the right one, though he could not make himself consider it such) of a five-on-one fight, and ended that by punching out a woman. This somehow managed to be less offensive than Cullen’s daily grind of the past few years, especially as Meredith’s brewing paranoia had complicated his duties.

Cullen unpacked the satchel that he had left on his room’s chair upon his arrival the previous day. After making sure no wood remained festering within the lacerations, an action he _really_ should have done the previous night, and washed himself with water from a basin he’d drawn, Cullen grabbed and uncorked a small bottle of salve he had packed and began applying it to the lesions that lightly pocked his shoulder, the elfroot extract in it tingling as the holes began to close themselves from the herb’s healing properties. 

He leaned in to the mirror to make sure that his face was not marred— the most noticeable wound was a thin sliver of a cut in the upper right corner of his lip. How had he not noticed it the previous night, he wondered? Perhaps his mind had been elsewhere, as he had been busy securing the unconscious Dalish elf, yelling at Yarrow for summarily executing the other hunter he had caught, waiting for scouts to confirm that the Dalish camp had indeed vanished, and writing a short letter to Ser Lia’s family describing her death in the line of service. He had his duties, and in a way, they comforted him.

Cullen glanced at the small leather case he kept his lyrium injection apparatus in. He was feeling well enough currently, he decided, and continued preparing himself for the day. He wouldn’t need the mineral to deal with mages, anyways, with the way things were going—he just would need it to stave off the aches and pains that forgetting his injections would cause.

He mentally attempted to catalog his schedule for the day: run training exercises, dispatch search parties, interrogate the elf.

Interrogate the elf. Cullen did not expect her to cooperate with the investigation. From their short interaction, he could tell that she would be difficult.

She had seemed so proud and steadfast on the riverbank. She had all but said that she bowed to no authority Cullen could possibly wield— she claimed to be untouched by the laws, both earthly and divine, that brought Cullen’s world certainty and order. She was wrong, of course, and delusional in her defiance, but it still unnerved him that he would essentially be seeing the wild woman _caged_.

After dressing in his armor, Cullen left his room. Much to his surprise, he found himself almost falling from a third-story hallway into open air down the side of the mountain. An entire swath of wall of the castle, almost ten feet wide and spanning three floors, had crumbled away, leaving several hallways exposed to the elements and presenting a major structural weakness in the building. As Cullen turned back away from the expansive mountain-scape and yawning maw of the blue sky and attempted to find his way to the stairs, he supposed he should have also sent for a mason when he dispatched the supply party.

Cullen arrived at the training yards of Highstone ready to begin morning drills, but only his men and six of the templars stationed at the hold had turned out. “I don’t suppose this is an accident, is it?” he said curtly. “Go wake everyone,” Cullen commanded. “We’ve got work to do. As is, supplying this place is a waste of lyrium.” He should have expected the insubordination, and also the idea that the men there were unused to regular training exercises. If the fight with the Dalish had begun earlier when Yarrow had attempted to draw his sword, Cullen suspected that the seven elves would have likely made short work of the nine templars.

He caught one of the Highstone men by his shoulder as he hurried into the keep. “You, what’s your name?”

“Ser Derrick, Knight-Captain, ser.” Ser Derrick looked as if he was nineteen, about Cullen’s age when he had first been stationed at Kinloch. It was an odd comparison— he actively tried not to think of Kinloch, going so far as to avoid reading news bulletins from Fereldan that discussed the exploits of Warden-Commander Surana.

“Ser Derrick, what is the purpose of this outpost?” Cullen asked.

“Oh… well, uhm,” he thought for a moment. “There are fifty of us, give or take, and we supply people to be stationed at the local Chantry at the sawmill town a little to the southwest. We also do patrols in the mountains, and look for apostates in the smaller settlements. You didn’t know that, ser?” It was oddly unsatisfactory to hear.

“I knew it,” Cullen said, releasing him, “I wanted to hear it from one of you.”

The morning training went abysmally, and after he had given up on getting them to raise a proper shield wall, he withdrew for his breakfast. The fort was poorly stocked, but had more than enough bread— though the meal was plain, Cullen ate plenty. He was still surprised that he was able to eat, even though it had been years since his dining schedule righted itself after the trauma of the fall of Kinloch.

The months afterwards had caused aberrations in his diet— he remembered that he had been forced to leave Kinloch to go to a Chantry-run monastery for washed-up and broken knights because Knight-Commander Greagoir had noticed a sharp weight loss accompanying the skittish paranoia that had consumed him. Cullen did not like to think about the time period after Uldred’s uprising. It was awful in a different way than the weeks he had spent in the abomination’s thrall— the internal suffering was somehow more shameful and embarrassing.

The fact that he’d had to be locked up was the worst of it, left so broken and shattered that he could not function normally. Early on in his forced withdrawal from the world, he had been so shaken that he had no real perception of time, each day a vacant blink and each night a brimming eternity as he settled into a state of tormented collapse punctuated by spasms of releasing trauma. He’d had to be restrained at some points, he knew, though the memories were not quite clear. Time passed, however, and he did regain his senses.

This period of time was almost worse: each day he would claw towards the idea of not wellness, but release. He could do nothing locked away but rot and fester and dwell on the thought that the Maker had most certainly turned His sights from him, the most miserable and pathetic of His children.

With the goal of release in mind, over months Cullen suppressed his tremors and learned to lie about the frequency of his nightmares and the return of his appetite. When he was finally deemed well and reassigned, Cullen was bereft of his single-minded ambition and instead was left to wonder if he would be treated as a shameful, broken thing by the knights in Kirkwall. When that fear had proven to be unreal, Cullen was able to throw himself into his work and often found himself eating— he had gained all of the weight plus some back over his years at the Gallows.

After consuming a large but not inordinate amount of the bland substance, Cullen went to speak to Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow, who was the absent Knight-Captain Jennah’s second in command. “You took care of Ser Lia’s remains last night?”

Yarrow nodded. “Aye. Cremated. In an urn in the hold’s chapel right now.” 

“Thank you, ser,” Cullen said. “What is the status of the prisoner?”

Shrugging, Yarrow admitted, “Haven’t been down to check. Wouldn’t want to run afoul of you and your protocol, or lay our fingers on _your lady_.”

Cullen blinked, confused. He then remembered his niceties from the previous day, and he suppressed a blush of embarrassment. “Oh… ugh. So she may have escaped, for all you know. Post some men down there— or better yet, assign a permanent gaoler. It would give at least one person something to do around here. Dismissed, Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow.” He desperately hoped that they did not treat the malificarum and apostates they arrested in such a careless manner. Then again, he somehow doubted they caught many. Cullen did not personally handle intake, so he had no idea how many mages Highstone did or did not send the way of the Gallows.

Cullen’s eyes followed the bearded man as he left in not much of a hurry, and he wondered if mutiny should be a concern of his, though only the Knight-Lieutenant had been openly rude. He’d soon send a bird to Kirkwall requesting more troops, he decided, and perhaps he would recommend that Yarrow and Knight-Captain Jennah report to the Gallows for reassignment.

Alone, he descended into the dungeon of the tower to locate the prisoner.

The only cell that was occupied belonged to the elf. Sullen and glowering, she sat at the front of the cell, leaning on the bars languidly. The blood from her mouth had clotted, he saw, leaving coagulated black mess at the bottom of her swollen lip. 

“Knight-Captain,” she said, pulling herself upwards to stand. As typical of prisoners’ treatment, she had been stripped of her armor down to her smallclothes upon her arrival at her cell, exposing an expanse of freckles and scars, yet she did not attempt to shield her skin from him as almost all female prisoners and several male ones did. She was bruised in several spots, not all from the previous day, judging by the colors, and goose pimples from the cold of the keep covered her shoulders and extended down her arms.

Cullen still didn’t know how to greet her— he supposed he could refer to her as ‘Lavellan,’ but he was unsure if elves were ever addressed with their clan’s name. “What do I call you?”

“What, you’re not going to go with ‘elf’? How about ‘rabbit ears’ or ‘knifey?’ Those tend to work.” She sounded bold, but she was terrified, Cullen could see. She shook slightly, but locked her eyes onto his with a steely resolve. Her lips trembled, and for a moment, the odd vulnerability of the unyielding woman on the beach set Cullen at unease— he had a distinct feeling that she wasn’t _supposed_ to be like this.

He’d never had that feeling about a prisoner before. Perhaps it was because she was not a mage, or because he had met her first as an equal of sorts.

Cullen crossed his arms and his armor clinked slightly as he postured. “Why are you persisting with this?”

“With what?”

He made a noise of exasperation. “You know what I mean. Grandstanding. Hostility. Defiance.”

“So I should…what?” the elf asked. “Beg and cry? I know as well as you that it will do me no good.” She sounded like she was going to cry anyways, her voice wavering. In the Circle, there were always ones that cried easily, racking and heaving when one questioned them or shrieking as they were escorted to the chamber where the Rite of Tranquility was performed, struggling with each step or being dragged as their buckled beneath them.

It used to be difficult for Cullen as a boy at Kinloch— a sobbing middle-aged man too feeble to continue to manage his connection to the Fade had never seemed to be the wicked that Cullen had steadfastly resolved to stand against. He consciously knew that the mages themselves were often not evil, and Tranquility would protect them from the demons that would exploit their weakness, but the train of logic was hard for the teenaged Cullen to follow when staring into a face tarnished with tears and twisted in pathetic anguish. The Kinloch Circle falling had, oddly, made his job so much easier in some ways.

“Perhaps not. You could tell us where we could find your clan,” Cullen suggested, “and then we could talk about your freedom. There will be no begging or crying required.”

“I don’t know where they are,” she said. She was either lying to him or had lied to the elf who did not want to leave her behind. Cullen would be willing to bet the worldly part of his salary that he was the one that she was attempting to fool. “And next’s the part where you torture me, and then you kill me when you realize that my information is worse than useless.” 

“We’re not going to kill you.” It was odd for Cullen, being faced with a non-mage as a prisoner. The threat of Tranquility or any of the typical mage-hunting tactics would mean absolutely nothing to her— she was more like the common thief or thug that the templars would turn over to the Guard—yet she firmly stood in the way of the Order’s ability to catch a dangerous murderer. “You’re useful as a hostage. I have a feeling that when we find the clan, they’ll be willing to trade you for the blood mage. She’s not even one of your own.”

She shook her head. “You won’t find them, Knight-Captain.”

“You have to know where they would go, surely,” Cullen entreated.

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” she replied, shaking her head.

Without another word, Cullen walked towards the exit and he was unsure of whether or not he heard the choked beginnings of weeping.

Cullen spent the rest of the day combing the forest. He and a handful of men rode out to the site where the Dalish camp had been and found only burnt out fire pits, animal bones, and the words ‘ _DREAD WOLF TAKE YOU, SHEMLEN_ ’ scorched into the earth. There was no indicator of where they might have relocated.

He commanded them to split into smaller search parties and advised them not to engage as he headed back to the tower later in the evening to send a bird to Meredith about the state of Highstone Hold and the lack of progress in the search. The corrupted phylactery still seemed confused by the proximity, however, and thus Cullen held hope that the clan was not far.

Frustrated with the search, Cullen visited the prisoner again late in the evening, descending into the basement dungeon as he considering the pros and cons of various interrogation methods. Cullen had already resolved to withhold food from her until she offered information. He was certain she was hiding something— she had most definitely told her fleeing clanmate that she’d come to him: _“I know where you’ll be! Go!”_ Cullen had to admit that he admired her bravery to stay behind, even if she'd only managed to delay a few of the templars. He wondered if it was the sort of thing that Dalish folk heroes did.

There was a Dalish man in the Kirkwall Circle who had been turned out from his clan when he came into his magic and the number of mages grew too large, and Cullen remembered that sometimes, he would find himself supervising the enchanter as he sat surrounded by children (mostly elven, but a few humans would come, unwilling to part with their playmates) who sat rapt at attention as he recounted the legends of his people. He told the tale of Lindiranae, defender of the Dales, and her blade Evanura often enough for Cullen to remember the strange elven words and the tragic flourishes of her story: when she fell, so did the Dalish kingdom. Cullen wondered if the elf fancied herself a Lindiranae, standing tall against encroaching human forces, too numerous and monumental to ever truly prevail against. Cullen imagined that it must be a sad existence. Noble, but sad.

If the elf really did see herself in such a way, it was unlikely that she would talk. The word ‘torture’ floated across Cullen’s mind. The prisoner was the one that had brought it up, after all. He supposed that it _was_ an option (it was always such in high-stakes situations), but he had always shied away from performing such interrogations in Kirkwall, at least personally. Even if he fully understood their importance, the screams of prisoners echoed with him and found themselves at home in the back of his own throat— as soon as he had attained the rank of Knight-Captain, he had ensured that he would no longer have to man the interrogation chambers.

As Cullen approached his destination, an unpleasant racket of yelps and swears clamored up from the dungeon to the top of the stairwell, causing the Knight-Captain to rush down the flight into the basement as quickly as he could. As he reached the bottom, he heard a sharp yell of “ _Fenedhis!_ ” from the elf and more traditional blaspheming from the templars stationed to watch over her. Reaching the holding area, he found her cell opened and her guards inside, one pinning her to the wall as her legs limply hung and the other delivering heavy blows to her stomach with one armored fist as he pulled at her hair with the other.

The elf let out a sharp cry as the fist caught her as she attempted to breathe in, her pulls of air short and shallow. Cullen entered the cell and placed himself between the elf and the templar punching her, a gauntleted hand still reaching over Cullen’s shoulder tangled in the woman’s hair. “Enough! What in the Maker’s name are you doing?!”

“She kept telling us to go fuck ourselves, Knight-Captain,” the one holding her said. He almost wished they had been one of the Highstone men, but no, the perpetrators were his own, two men named Robbett and Jerome that had ridden from Kirkwall with him. Not that he was surprised about that fact.

“And what did you say to her?”

“Nothing, ser,” answered Jerome, releasing her hair. “She’s insane. Put her down, Robbett.”

Robbett complied, dropping the elf, who slid down the wall without his unwelcome support. She panted as she crumbled to their feet. “The bitch just went off yelling, in her language and ours. She wouldn’t stop raving until we went in on her.”

Cullen looked at the heap on the floor, and then back at his men. She seemed to be shaking her head. “You’re dismissed. I'll speak with you both later,” he said, still staring intently at the elf.

“Aye, Knight-Captain,” they said, saluting him as they left.

“Ugliest elf I ever did see,” said one as they went up the stairs.

“The Knight-Captain’ll set her straight. One of the men from here told me about how he punched her out.”

The elf twitched her nose slightly at their words, and spoke once their footsteps disappeared up the echoing stairway. “This is where it begins, huh?” Tears welled in the elf’s eyes as she labored to breathe. It seemed that he had intervened early in the guards’ assault— he had seen many beatings, and this one did not seem severe. Other than the re-opened lip, her head seemed to have gone untouched, and she seemed to be candid. The short gasps made Cullen wonder if her guards had fractured any of her ribs. “I know nothing. I told you already.” Her voice was hoarse and strained. 

“What did they say to provoke you?” Cullen asked, under no illusion that his men were blameless in starting the altercation. He bent down to take a closer look at her. He half-expected the elf to spring at him and attempt to tear his eyes from their sockets despite her injuries, but she remained against the wall on the ground, shrinking as he debated whether or not to perform a cursory physical examination on her to get a better grasp of her state. He wondered if he should attempt to use her current condition as leverage.

She didn’t answer his question, but she allowed her tearing eyes to close and her upper body to slump to the floor, cringing as if she was attempting to bury herself with her freckled shoulders, one of which seemed to be dislocated. "Why? Are you going to try to convince me I'm crazy now? Insist that I made all of what they said up?"

“Just answer the question.”

She did not, and Cullen jostled her so that she faced up at him, gasping in pain with her eyes jerked open. Her bony ribcage was bruised, Cullen saw as her dislocated arm involuntarily lolled back— it was indeed likely that one of the ribs was broken.

“Just let me die.” She breathed heavily, wincing as she proclaimed her melodrama on the floor.

“You’re not dying, elf,” he said, rolling his eyes. He did not think that she had sustained more extensive internal injuries, and she would likely be fine if he left her alone. Perhaps the pain would humble her. Pain certainly had done so to him.

She moved her good arm to shield her bare, mottled ribs with calloused fingers. She would hide her injury, but not her bareness, Cullen realized. Icily and tiredly, she groaned, “Tell me how long I’ve got, then, Knight-Captain. Will I rot here? Or do you show me mercy and kill me when you decide that I’m worthless?”

Cullen did not reply, but instead stood to exit the cell. “If you cooperate, you’ll be afforded medical attention,” he said, locking the cell door behind him as she began to sniffle and shake on the dirty rock floor.

“Knight-Captain,” she called after him, choked and desperate as she sobbed amidst the filth of the dungeon.

Perhaps she had some sense, Cullen thought. He gave a slight turn. “Yes?”

Her announcement was surprisingly adamant: “Go fuck yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for reading!
> 
> i feel like i might be writing too much "cullen interacts with really half-assed templars" fluff, but i really do like exasperated-and-cranky-boss-dude!cullen. he's always come off as kind of moody and touchy to me, and that's great imo.
> 
> so i think i'm going to rework some of what I have because i'm not sure if i like the pacing as is. i'm not sure though-- this is unbeta'd because none of my friends irl like dragon age and i don't really know anyone in the fandom online. so, uh, yeah.


	5. Obstruction of Expectation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan decides she wants to talk to Cullen, but he's not so sure that this is an auspicious turn of events. Hawke and Anders are ambushed.

After two full days of training exercises, reading the messages that the search parties had sent by raven, and assigning runners to find each of them with more directives and questions about the possible locations of the elves, and searching the more manageable areas of the woods himself with a small but determined band of men upon the hold's swiftest horses, Cullen decided it was time at last to see the prisoner again. She had not left his mind since their unceremonious parting. As the search efforts became more and more frustrated, her presence seemed to permeate more than the cell in which she was held.

When he wasn't dwelling on the elf, Cullen spent his time in a state of continous astonishment about the inexperience of the men stationed at Highstone— after asking around the Keep, he had come to the revelation that none of the men had ever extracted information in an interview with a detainee. Most seemed to think that interrogation began and ended with torture, and were either too squeamish or too eager to engage in such activity. Yarrow had been particularly disturbing, suggesting ‘methods reserved for female prisoners’ that Cullen found contrary to the purpose of the Order.

Nor did he want the men he had brought from Kirkwall with him to interrogate her. They would likely be poisoned against her if Robbett and Jerome had spoken of their time supervising her, which they undoubtedly had. Cullen did not want to utilize any interrogators that bore any ill will toward their subject. Many of the worst abuses at the Gallows had occurred when templars were given opportunities to settle personal scores with mages that they disliked.

The Knight-Captain realized that it was likely that he would have to either personally perform or supervise all interrogations. This was not a pleasant revelation, as it was likely that torture would indeed have to be utilized.

Cullen did not like torture— he was rather adverse to the practice, even when he found it necessary. Before his promotion he would have to physically execute the activity, attaching shackles and cranking levers and screws that extracted blood-curdling screams and confessions of blood magic and treachery before going back to his quarters and struggling to keep bile from the back of his throat. After the role of Knight-Captain freed him from such footwork, Cullen stayed as far from the rooms as possible, lest he find himself slipping into some kind of sickened daze. His promotion had been a fortunate break, as recently the numbers of mages sent to the chambers had more than quadrupled. 

He could not and would not pretend that he was morally above the practice of torture, as some Chantry mothers who did not understand the realities of mage-hunting urged the Order and its knights to be. Despite his unwillingness to personally engage in physical coercion, he had sent many men and women to the chambers in the Gallows, and authorized torture’s use many times. It was bearable if he did not hear the screaming. Sometimes, one had to comply with guidelines that they did not particularly like if they efficiently served a higher purpose.

He wondered why the prisoner had to be so stubborn. She had the power to make it easier on both herself and Cullen, if she wanted.

Cullen preferred not to think of torturing the prisoner as an inevitability. He had spent the prior evening combing over Highstone’s seventy-five year record of Dalish sightings, attempting to find a pattern in their movements, but also ruminating on a reason to not torture the difficult woman locked in the cells below.

He was fully authorized to under regulations that Meredith had set forth, as the Dalish woman was withholding information that would help in the capture of a blood mage. She was practically an accessory to blood magic, and her silence could forfeit lives. Still, Cullen was away from the Gallows and felt that he could do his job in the manner he chose, and that manner would _not_ fill his head with hollow screeches and memories of his own desperate wish to die.

Cullen finally determined that it was likely that under intense torture, she would somehow manage to kill herself just to spite them, thus losing the templars both a source of information and a hostage in negotiating the blood mage’s return. It was somewhat shoddy, but it would do. After taking his dose of lyrium in the midmorning, Cullen headed down to the dungeon with a clear mind and a clearer purpose.

He’d run the ‘Apostate’s Mother’ maneuver on her, he had decided over breakfast, with some modifications. The Apostate’s Mother was a well-tried, civil interrogation technique that often proved successful on family members of runaway mages that had been arrested in the suspicion of abetting malificars. Runaway Circle mages were difficult to find once they entered Darktown, even with the use of phylacteries— there were too many levels of sewer to canvas. Almost always, their families knew where they were, or could lure them out. If one made the interviewee’s situation clear, and could establish that cooperation with the templars could mitigate their own punishment for the transgression of aiding apostates, they often were willing to betray a family member to the Order.

If that didn’t work, one spent time painting the apostate as dangerous to themselves, the prisoner and the rest of their family, and then stressed that the templars could protect all involved. He’d done this countless times in Kirkwall, and usually the tearful mothers, fathers, siblings, and cousins of runaways would direct the templars to their exact hiding spots. Either way, it painted the templar as the only hope of the one being questioned— they needed help, and the Order would be happy to give it if they turned themselves over to its will.

Cullen entered the dungeon to find the two Highstone men he had assigned the post doing absolutely nothing wrong. One seemed slightly inattentive, peering out the barred window in the stone room that looked out on a tree-lined horizon, but it was a small infraction that even Cullen would not bother reprimanding.

“Knight-Captain Cullen, ser,” said Ser Derrick, grinning broadly. “We’ve been watching here, just like you said. She’s been better these few hours, at least.”

The other looked away from the window. “Hasn’t yelled for maybe a day, from what the last shift said.”

“Knight-Captain Cullen, ser, a word,” Derrick said.

“You may speak,” Cullen said, caution lacing his voice.

Derrick cleared his throat. “Listen, Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow and some of his lot might be giving you a hard time,” he said, “but we want you to know that most’ve us appreciate what you’re doing here. I’ven’t felt like a true templar since training, Knight-Captain, not since coming out here. But you’ve had us running like we’re _real_.”

“Aye, ser,” said the other. “We haven’t had morning drills in a long time. Maybe this way, we’ll catch more apostates out here, or at least defend the villages against bandits better.”

“Oh, uhm…” Cullen grumbled, raising an eyebrow. He did not know how to respond, and wondered if either of them was needling for a promotion, especially since it was obvious that he wasn’t thrilled with the work of the Highstone leadership. Instead of acknowledging their comments, he said, “Dismissed, knights. Wait. See if you can get someone to locate a quarry— the hold needs to have the hole in its north wall fixed. It’s three stories high. How has this not been remedied yet?” 

With an ‘aye, Knight-Captain,’ the two young men shuffled off up the stone stairs. Softly, Derrick’s voice came from the top of the flight. “See? He’s so professional. I wonder if I could get transferred to the Gallows…” Something in Cullen’s stomach sank a little.

“ _Aneth ara_ , Knight-Captain. This is the sticks for you, isn’t it?” the elf said, sucking on a sponge inundated with water. She had not yet been allowed solid food, but she seemed as if she was doing better. The elf had somehow managed to reduce her shoulder on her own— Cullen had learned that it was impossible to do so by oneself. He wondered if that only applied to humans.

“You’re in a good mood, elf,” Cullen observed, suspicious and wary of the friendliness of the woman who had previously told him to go fuck himself. Prisoners were not supposed to be cheery. Something tended to be dreadfully wrong when they were.

“I am.” She licked her lips, moistened from the water. Her mouth was expressive, and seemed almost dangerously soft, despite the painful looking crack. “Despair is _useless_ , Knight-Captain.” The elf grinned up at him, and he took it as a sort of invitation.

“I’m glad you’re talkative,” he said, bringing a chair up to the bars.

“You’re going to try to talk to me about the apostate,” she observed, her arm resting on her raised knee. “But that’s no fun.”

Cullen sighed. “It’s not supposed to be fun. You do realize that that woman endangers your entire clan, correct?”

“Mostly because she has your Order chasing her,” the elf said with a roll of her big, dark eyes. It was an almost childish gesture. Cullen wondered how old she was. By his estimate, she could not be younger than twenty, nor could she be any older than him. “Let’s talk about you, Knight-Captain. Cullen. Can I call you Cullen?”

“No,” Cullen said.

“Come on,” she entreated. “A name for a name. Promise me I can call you Cullen, and I’ll tell you what I go by.”

“Ugh… fine.” As useless as it was, it was information, and he would not pass anything that she was offering up.

“I’m Adahlen. A hunter of Clan Lavellan.” Adahlen Lavellan. It was a pretty name, Cullen could not help but think— the sort of thing he would expect a Dalish elf to be called. He did not want to be too familiar, and decided to use her clan’s title as a surname despite his lack of knowledge of such convention.

“So, Lavellan…”

“You can call me Adahlen, you know.”

“Lavellan.”

“This is a professional relationship, then. I thought we could be friends,” she huffed.

Cullen ignored the affectation. “Lavellan, you do realize that your fate rests with the Templar Order, right? And with me.”

She scratched the layer of hair on her scalp, and Cullen wondered if she had always kept it so short, and if it was common for Dalish women to shave their heads. No woman he knew in Fereldan or Kirkwall ever did, though a trend of short hair on woman had apparently been sweeping Kirkwall ever since Hawke had made her name as Champion— ‘The Marian,’ he had overheard some female knights calling the particular style. The elf closed her eyes and thought for a moment, and she trembled slightly as she exhaled slowly. “Yes, I’ve come to realize that. My life is in your hands, _Cullen_.”

At least Lavellan did not need to be convinced of the obvious. “Cooperation would ensure your safety and likely your eventual release. I know that you’d like that.”

She didn’t answer, but instead picked up the sponge and sipped at it. “I really do want to know you. You’re from Kirkwall. Is it like in a Tethras book?”

Cullen couldn’t help himself. “You don’t mean to tell me the Dalish read _Hard in Hightown_.”

“ _I_ read _Hard in Hightown_. It’s my job to deal with humans. I’m like an ambassador of sorts. Books help, when I can pick them up.”

“So you chose to study humans with a book written by a dwarf.”

“A book written by a dwarf that many humans read. At least that’s what the guy I got it from told me, he could have been scamming me out of the pelts we traded it for. But you’ve read it, or a least heard of it— you knew exactly what I was talking about,” Lavellan said, still sucking at the sponge. Cullen had never exactly _liked_ the serials (Varric Tethras was a ridiculous writer, and everything in the books was unrealistic and not very amusing), but he didn’t have much else to do during his time off-duty. Without many friends or hobbies, he’d somehow managed to put quite a dent into the dwarf’s rather pulpy body of work.

“I suppose. …Kirkwall isn’t much like the book, no. It’s dirty, but the accuracy ends there.” Even the nice parts of the city were squalid— somehow, the cow-town of Honnleath managed to be cleaner and more accommodating than even the richest parts of Hightown.

“Better or worse than other human cities?” Maker, was she inquisitive, and to what end? He wondered if she was playing at some game.

Cullen sought to end the line of questioning. “I wouldn’t know,” Cullen said. He had only ever been in Denerim, and then only for two days as he prepared to take a ship to Kirkwall. Fereldan’s largest city was separated by less than a year from the darkspawn invasion, but it had eagerly taken to rebuilding itself. Half-painted new facades had sprung up on the homes outside the battered market district. Where stores had been burnt and not yet rebuilt, their tenants had set up booths on the streets to hawk their wares. Humans and elves alike had rushed through the streets carrying buckets of nails or helping to secure mule carts of lumber as they hurried to their next project and mandolin players wailed joyfully on street corners in praise of Warden Surana, the hero who had saved all of Fereldan.

Cullen mostly stayed in his room in the inn, avoiding the songs of the woman he had yearned after and shamed himself before, until the ship was ready to be boarded, and he flinched miserably each time the boards above his head creaked or a laugh floated down the hall into the poorly lit space he had paid to occupy. Worst of all were the lovers renting the next room over— their amorous sounds made him exceedingly uncomfortable— yet all he could do to ignore them was bury his head in his sheets and attempt to drown his mounting sickness.

The first evening he had sought reprieve in the streets’ evening merriment to avoid the proximity, but it had driven him straight into the songs that he had earlier sought to avoid. He spent much of the purse the Chantry had supplied him for his journey to get drunk (he had wrongly thought it would purge him of the anxiety and stress and the neuroses developed over weeks of torment and months of remedial isolation) for the first time in his life and to have sex (he had wrongly thought it would cure him of the aversions, of the echoes of screams, of the shame and resentment) for the first time in his life. Both of these firsts had been miserable, and afterwards he had retreated to his quarters and buried himself in his scratchy pillows to drown out the world.

Of the two cities he had been in, filthy Kirkwall had treated him much better, and he found himself eager to return, despite its miserable condition and his earlier desire to leave. He’d managed to work out his aversions to both sex and drinking within its crumbling walls, though he hardly partook in either activity. The city was practically crawling with malificarum, and there were many checks and balances that relied upon his presence. He needed to get back to the city, he thought— and to think he had been so eager to leave on this particular mission. Lavellan was the only obstacle between Cullen and performing his job. She was staring at him, waiting for him to speak. “Perhaps you could see for yourself as a free woman.”

“You’re going to tell me what that look on your face was,” Lavellan said. “You had a bad experience in a city. What happened? Did you get robbed? Had a lover leave you?” 

He had no intention to tell her, or anyone about the details of his brief stay in Denerim and the crescendo of purposelessness and loneliness that he had experienced there. Especially not a strange Dalish woman he held in custody for harboring blood mages. “You’re not asking the questions.”

“I just did.”

“That’s not what I— ugh. Never mind. Regardless of whether or not you asked a question, it’s not your place to be asking questions. Do you understand that?” 

“Of course I understand what my place is. I’m just uninterested in it.” Lavellan frowned suddenly, but her expression did not darken. Thinking, she cocked her head and narrowed her big dark eyes, nipping her swollen bottom lip with her teeth. She winced slightly when she placed pressure on the broken part, but then laughed. “I’ve decided that I like you, Knight-Captain Cullen.”

 

* * *

 

“We should hit the trail to the mountain glen site if we keep on this road for an hour more,” Hawke said as she and Anders sojourned into the thick of the fog.

“You said that an hour ago. This is a stupid plan anyways,” Anders said, slumping tiredly upon the horse that Hawke had just bought him. His staff and bag were slung across his back as he sat astride the bay gelding, which walked at a happy clip on the mountain trail.

“What, are the fresh air and beautiful mountain valley getting to you?” Hawke asked with a small smile, her mare trotting alongside his mount. “Marethari could have sent us back to the sewers.” Marethari had denied harboring Lisle, but had suggested that she might be with another clan. The Keeper had quickly drawn up a map of the typical Dalish campsites in the hills to the west— she claimed that in certain areas, her people had somewhat predictable settlement patterns based on natural defenses and where halla could graze. Apparently Clan Sabrae had used the mountain glen site when it was in the area previously.

“Well, there are less sewer tunnels in Kirkwall than there are mountains in the Vimmarks,” Anders said. “And we’ve a better chance at killing the thugs there than the two of us do at dealing with an entire angry Dalish clan. We should’ve brought Merrill. They’d probably ask before they shot at her.”

“Merrill’s making crafts for the alienage’s festival,” Hawke said. “It’s the one social thing she’s done all year that I haven’t dragged her into— I don’t want to disrupt that.”

Most of Hawke’s band of not-really-that-merry misfits had actually been quite busy that week. Aveline also had her hands full with the alienage street festival, as the guard required much more stringent patrols during any celebration. Sebastian was busy helping Elthina play host to some Very Important Grand Cleric from the Anderfels, Varric was in Markham promoting the newest edition of the complied _Hard In Hightown_ serials, a set of books that was illuminated, annotated, leather-bound, and signed by the dwarf himself, and Isabela had left a note pinned to the bar with a dagger at The Hanged Man that read “ _gone until further notice, don’t worry, will bring souvenirs xoxoxoxoxoxoxxxxxx ;) ;)._ ”

Hawke had suggested that they invite Fenris to provide extra battlefield support, but Anders had vetoed the idea, claiming that he would rather take his chances with a whole slew of violent, angry elves that he didn’t know than deal with a single violent, angry elf that he did know. Hawke was not looking forward to squaring off against the blood mage with only one person as back-up, but Anders had been steadfast in his aversion. His personal distaste for Fenris had been growing as of late, and certain notes of disproportionate harshness against Sebastian and Aveline had been surfacing when they voiced even tacit disapproval. Anders even tended to get snippy with Varric for little reason when he was in foul moods— Hawke worried for her friend more than usual but was unsure of how to approach him. Hawke faced her friendships like she faced her fights— sidestepping and circumspection could direct her straight to the vitals of both an opponent and an interpersonal relationship. Instead of asking Anders about what was wrong, Hawke had been taking him for little excursions more and more in hope that he would either leave his gloom by the wayside or tell her what haunted his mind. Well, other than an angry spirit.

Anders seemed to enjoy their time together, until he got distant and moody. He was still almost always kind and gentle towards her, at least, and going out around the city did seem to ward away the dark clouds that had began to always hang above his head.

“Well, Merrill’s old clan is nice enough, I suppose. They’re only _slightly_ hostile. Maybe these ones won’t be so bad either.” He paused. “Or not. I had a Dalish friend once. One that wasn’t Merrill. She told me all sorts of stories, mostly about the things the Dalish did to human prisoners.”

“Well, let’s not become prisoners, then,” Hawke said. “Maybe we can have a whole bunch of Dalish friends by the time that this is over.”

“If we ever find them,” Anders said. “We’ve been riding for a week and a half and all we’ve found is one old camp site and three offerings to their deer god.”

“Aw, you don’t like spending quality time with me, Anders?” she pouted.

“No, I lov— oh Maker!” Anders swung to the side of his horse as an arrow buzzed by his head, and hung panting in terror from the saddle.

Hawke’s horse whinnied and shied as an arrow caught it in the rump, and she jumped with a roll from the saddle onto the path. She drew her knives, and deflected another whizzing arrow as it emerged from the fog.

“How can they see us?! I can’t see anything,” Anders said, dumping himself from the side of his mount less gracefully onto the ground behind Hawke. Standing, he patted the side of the horse of the horse and allowed it to follow the other one off down the mountainside in a panic as arrows streamed by the charging beast. “Shoo!” Anders narrowly dodged another arrow, crouching as he prepared his staff.

Hawke put a finger over her lips, and then mouthed, “ _I think they’re relying on sound_.” She tossed a stone to confirm her suspicion. No sooner did the rock hit the wall of the path than another arrow dashed itself against the ground nearby. 

Anders nodded, and stayed perfectly still. “I have an idea,” he whispered, perhaps too loudly— this time two arrows crossed above the heads of the crouched party. “If you want me to clear the fog, I can heat the ground to the temperature of the air so we can see.”

“ _I have some tar grenades. I can flank and immobilize them if you’ve got cover_ ,” Hawke agreed, making no noise as she exaggeratedly mouthed the agreement.

Anders nodded, and loudly threw a crackling lightning bolt to hide the noise of his frenzied footsteps as he made his way into a crevice in the rock wall beside them. Shrouding herself in invisibility powder, Hawke dashed towards the source of the arrows as quickly and silently as her deadly skill allowed, and a band of three elves became visible as she attempted to ignore the tiny magical flames springing up near her feet and dying just as quickly.

Disoriented by the sudden disappearance of their cover, the elves did not notice as Hawke sped past them, lobbing a grenade filled with a viscous substance at their feet. One of them let out a cry as the clay urn shattered, immobilizing them with quickly-drying tar.

“ _Fenedhis!_ My bow’s stuck!” called one of the archers, struggling to loose his weapon from the sticky black mess that Hawke had shrouded him in.

“Relax and enjoy the mud bath,” she said, crossing her arms behind them as she reappeared grinning triumphantly. “I’m friendly.”

“Teamwork!” Anders cheered, hoisting his staff in the air as he rushed towards the incapacitated group. “How long do we have before they can pull free?”

“Dread Wolf take you both, _shemlen_ ,” one of the elves spat.

Hawke ignored the insult. “Hmm, I used the strong one,” she said, “so quite a while. We might even need to use the alchemical dissolver to get them out.”

“Are you with the templars?” one of the elves asked, paling. “I told you they were going to kill us all in this mess, Ihassa, I told you,” he said to the archer.

Anders laughed. “Do we look like templars to you? We’re virtually the opposite.”

“So the templars are out this way, too,” Hawke observed. “I guess we’re on the right track. We’re not going to kill you. What dealings have you had with the templars?”

“We’re not telling you, _shemlen_ ,” said Ihassa the archer, still desperately straining against the tar that held him firmly in place.

The other elf was not so discreet. “The templars killed two of ours in a spat over some runaway mage and now they’re going after the clan. They haven’t found us… but if more of us die over that _woman_ …I don’t know why the Keeper’s even willing to vouch for her. She denies she’s a blood mage, but blood mages _lie._ ”

“Well, the Knight-Captain’s gotten himself up to some trouble,” Hawke observed.

“Kelleth, _lethallin_ , no,” said Ihassa, glaring at Kelleth. “The Keeper said that if she’s pledged to the Old Ways and that we should—”

“The mage’s not one of ours,” Kelleth scoffed. “Adahlen and Nithas are dead because of her. We should have killed the flat-eared bitch the moment we found her and dumped her corpse at the feet of the templars.”

“Does he have anything to say?” Hawke asked, pointing at the third in their party. The other elf rapidly shook his head. “Well then. I’ve learned quite a bit about what’s going on here, haven’t you, Anders?”

Anders nodded. “Listen, we’re trying to find the mage too. And we don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Kelleth glowered. “Should’ve turned her right out, or…or something. Could you talk some sense into the Keeper? One elf isn’t worth it. They’ll just keep sending people after her— they’ve been getting closer and closer to us in their searches and it’s going to be hard to move the aravels from the glen. Creators, we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess.”

“Well, if you promise not to shoot us, we have ourselves a deal,” Hawke said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re: the role of Lavellan as an ambassador/diplomat to humans:  
> While playing through as a non-mage elf, I wondered why that particular hunter could be sent to the Conclave, and sort of settled on the idea of her being someone whose job it was to interact with the humans that the clan ran into-- read some books, vaguely understand what Andrasteism's all about, communicate the sentiment of "regardless of what you've heard about crazy Dalish elves, we mean you no harm" and all that.
> 
> The Lavellan I'm writing in this story is the same person as in my other story, except about five or six years younger and definitely more immature. I feel like I have one more separate multi-chapter fic about this particular Inquisitor in me but that requires a lot of planning and a lot of time for my writing to develop-- as much as writing fiction relaxes me, I'm not very good at it and I err on the side of very beige prose and I'm never sure if I'm conveying what I want to convey. Until then I sort of want to write something short about a male mage Adaar Inquisitor and one or two things in other fandoms, but idk what's going on or how my real-life schedule will treat me this upcoming school year. Well, that got away from me.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Obstruction of Goodwill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen begins to realize that he is attracted to Lavellan, who proposes a deal.

“What?” Cullen blinked, incredulous. He was tempted to ask her why, but suppressed the urge. He stared at her, hoping that she could somehow discern her game from her physicality, but all he saw was freckles spanning her tanned face and shoulders and jutting shoulders. “If you like me so much, you should—“

“Cooperate?” Lavellan laughed again, a deep, throaty chuckle inundated with a slyness that put Cullen on edge. She winced, and a hand immediately floated to her bruised ribs, but she heeded the pain no further. “See? There it is again— the reason I like you. Do you like me?”

“That’s irrelevant,” he said. She baffled him more than anything. Lavellan had gone from sobbing on the ground the previous day to being chatty and genially antagonistic, setting Cullen at unease. She had an oddly enticing air to her that Cullen had not seen since she greeted him along the river, and he found it difficult to ignore.

“So it’s not a no,” Lavellan said, “at least not explicitly.” The hand that did not rest on her knee reached up to trace her jutting collarbone lightly, her finely muscled upper arm pushing her full breasts together in her brassiere. A strip of pale skin, paler even than her stomach, peeked forth from behind a line of cloth as her tiny motions exacerbated her cleavage.

Cullen tore his eyes away from her. He would not allow himself to see his charge’s body in a sexual manner. He had made that mistake before, and paid for it dearly, perhaps deservedly. “Why do you persist in this?” He turned his face, hoping that the dark of the dungeon would hide his light blush better than it hid her tan lines.

“Haven’t you asked me already?”

“Do you think yourself a hero for defying the Order, Lavellan?” he asked. “I’ve heard some of your people’s legends—“

Lavellan stifled a laugh, and clapped her hand over her mouth to gingerly rub the cracked part. She seemed to have used the sponge to remove some of the blood, revealing the seam of the wound before she had shielded it from him. When she was done prodding at the injury, she said, “I’m sorry. That must have been depressing. Everyone’s always dying in Dalish legends. Especially the heroes.”

“Not many heroes live long lives in human legends, either,” Cullen felt sour for delivering the news.

“For every Ser Aveline or Blessed Andraste you have, we’re stuck with at least ten Lindiranaes, if you’ve heard that one,” she explained. Her tone did not seem very reverent, and Cullen supposed that no, she did not see herself as the hero with whom the Dales fell. “There’s no shortage of elven corpses in our stories. We tell them to mourn, I think.”

Cullen was silent for a while. “You don’t like elven martyrs, then. Why are you so intent to become one?”

“It’s not the martyrdom I dislike, not necessarily,” she said. “It’s the elven corpses. So, are you going to kill me?”

“No,” Cullen said with a groan. “But you’re still playing a risky game.”

“I’ve told you. It’s the principle of giving an elf over to humans— or bowing to your kind at all. The mage doesn’t really matter all that much.” She bit her bottom lip, gingerly avoiding the area that was split. Maker, a part of him that he wished to excise thought, was the split a tragedy. He remembered her on the bank of the river, grinning and grandstanding, and he had watched her mouth as carefully as he watched her hands and stance. “You know that my clan would kill every templar in this castle if there was a battle, right?”

Cullen was taken aback. “You don’t know how many men are stationed here.”

“We looked at this hold on the way into the area. We always do that sort of thing. The Keeper said she didn’t think it could hold more than one hundred.” It was an overestimation. “My clan’s very big. We’ve got more combatants than that, and the people here can’t fight for shit, from what I’ve seen. So, if you found us and attacked, we would kill you, then word would get out, and then every single militia in the Free Marches would set out to exterminate us like rats. If you confront the clan, both sides lose. Give up and end this.”

Cullen ignored her, though the declaration was troubling. Perhaps she was attempting some sort of bluff— Ser Derrick had informed him the previous day that she had attempted to persuade him and his fellow gaoler (both of whom had been instructed to avoid engaging with her at all costs, after what had happened with the men he brought from Kirkwall) that Clan Lavellan had left the area. This was patently false, as swift riders on the fastest mounts, capable of outriding anyone and anything, had coursed down all possible passageways that their landships could have taken. They were definitely still in the area, hidden and hidden well. Cullen was of the opinion that mabari hounds could have tracked the elves and solved the problem long ago, but the war-dogs were hardly ever bred outside of Fereldan. It was a blighted waste, as far as Cullen was concerned.

Cullen decided to keep up the interrogation. “Do you have family, Lavellan? I’m certain your mother and father would rather see you safe than continue down this path.”

“You tell me who you left back in Kirkwall first,” she said.

“Why?”

“I said I wanted to get to know you,” Lavellan sat unnaturally still, her arm propped up by her knee. She was wincing, her every breath in seeming pain. “I might be here for a while. So. Mother? Father? Siblings? Is there a Mrs. Knight-Captain?” The corner of Cullen’s lip twitched, and she asked, “How about a Mr. Knight-Captain?”

“You have no reason to know about my personal life.”

“You’re single,” she stated plainly.

Cullen blinked. “How did you—“ 

“Got you.” Lavellan grinned at him. It was a very distinctive grin, and she seemed very self-satisfied. He wondered again what game she might be playing, or if she was playing a game at all. She could be bored. She could very well be insane. She let out a cough, and her body shifted again against her will, and her eyes shot wide as her shoulder slumped downwards. Lavellan hadn’t reduced it, Cullen saw, realizing that his initial judgment of the action’s impossibility had been correct— he kicked himself for not noticing. She had been propping it up on her knee to hide the dislocation, likely causing herself much pain. “Ahh! _Fenedhis_ ,” she groaned in her language.

“Why pretend?” Cullen asked her.

“And let them know that I can’t fight back?” she answered, desperation to mask desperation, of all things, thick in her voice. What a useless gesture.

Cullen wanted to laugh at her, and would have if she had not already been subject to brutality at the hands of the Order. Brutality that never should have happened. The men had swords— even with both arms fully functional, the weaponless elf could not hope to defend herself against them. Instead, he said, “You need not have worried.” It was why he had chosen them for the post— he had confidence that they would at least follow the order of ‘for the love of Andraste, do not open the door for any reason whatsoever, and if you think that it might be a good idea, please come find me.’ The fact that the two had dedicatedly attended morning training routines gave him more faith in them than most of the men in the hold.

“I figured out that the two were toothless after the first few hours.” She spoke as if she was not frightened, but she must have been, to uncomfortably position her arm for so long. She did not seem tired, so he assumed she must have slept at some point. He could not imagine her slumber being restful at all. “Neither of them was as talkative as you.”

“What?” He had never had someone call him ‘talkative’ before. Cullen often struggled to carry on longer conversations: he said what had to be said, or bluntly put forth merely what he was thinking. To him, there was never a need for pleasantries, or to fill silence. Chatter was the providence of salesmen and Hightown socialites.

Lavellan was definitely among the louder prisoners that he had dealt with, and the most distinctive, save one. She was not quite so beautiful as Surana had been, but— Cullen mentally kicked himself. The fact that he had begun to compare her to the object of his teenaged infatuation was a terrible sign.

“What’s the matter?” 

He didn’t answer, instead redirecting the conversation. “Your gaolers are under strict orders not to speak with you. Jerome and Robbett— the first ones who watched you— were not.” She fell silent, and narrowed her eyes. He’d hit a sore spot, clearly. “If it’s any comfort, what they did was inexcusable, and contrary to the purpose of the Order.”

She raised her chin, as if appraising his statement. She had a strong jawline, and it suited her. “I accept the apology.”

“It’s not an— never mind.” It had been an apology, of sorts. 

“You’re a model templar,” she said abruptly, and Cullen raised a brow in puzzlement. Lavellan apparently did not like that, so she added, “I wasn’t mocking you.”

“Hardly,” he murmured, unsure of what part of the statement he was replying to as his stomach fluttered in both self-disgust and joy. His thoughts, impure and shameful, were not those of a model templar’s, yet Lavellan’s words were not quite a _validation_ , but they were oddly _validating_. At least he could act the part of a knight. “I’ve…ah…I do try.” He almost asked her if he had treated her well, but treating her well was something that he did not need to do.

Cullen knew that purpose would be better served by beating her as Robbett and Jerome had, by causing her so much pain that she would beg for reprieve as she lay shuddering and shattered, the location of her clan and the apostate spilling forth with her broken breath. Yet she was so helpless, so powerless, that the idea of bringing her further harm troubled him greatly— if he could perform his duty and extract the information from her without further violence to her being, he would be much happier.

“I’m glad,” she said, “that it’s you who has me.”

Had her. The way of stating it made his mouth go dry. The matter of Lavellan had somehow become _personal_ to Cullen. He was unable to sign her away into the charge of others like he would at the Gallows, citing the Maker’s will to justify his actions. With the length that they had spoken, he could not pretend she did not have a face or a name and swallow the bile of her pain, sublimating the misery into a simmering sickness, chronic but manageable. He could not take the coward’s exit here.

Lavellan was caged, but Cullen knew that she would follow him even if he once more took to the woods to join the search parties that so exhaustively and exhaustedly combed the roving mountainous landscape for her people, riding at his back as he barked orders in the brisk, cutting air. Her specter, wispy and heavy at once, had peered over his shoulder as he had busied himself with clerical tasks and research, her ragged breath on the nape of his neck. Yes, he had Lavellan, and he could not be rid of her.

“Glad?” was all he could say.

She nodded, bowing her head to the side slightly when she came to rest. The length of her hair left her neck exposed, vulnerable in the low light of the dungeon candles. He chose not to look at the slumped shoulder, instead focusing on the one that jutted sharply as she reached to scratch her jaw absently. Cullen did not want to look at her at all, especially not with her mottled ribs and dislocated shoulder. The fact that she was injured made him feel much worse about his attraction to her.

She spoke again finally, her voice soft. “Can we make a deal?”

Cullen stared at the open doorway to the staircase instead of looking at her. “It depends.”

“I’ll tell you about my family if you reduce my shoulder. That’s cooperation, right?” she asked.

“I will not open the cell,” he answered.

“Cullen, even if you put my shoulder back into place, I’m still going to be injured. I won’t be able to fight you, let alone the soldiers here. Not if I want to live. It… can be a mutual gesture of goodwill.”

“Very well,” Cullen finally said, mostly because he had nothing to lose from taking her up on her offer— even with an opened cell door, her chances of escape were next to nothing. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his hands on his knees. “Talk.” 

And talk she did as Cullen fixated his gaze somewhere slightly above her head, pretending to look at her as he filtered her information for possible hints at the location of Clan Lavellan. There was nothing useable within her words—in fact, all Cullen learned was that Lavellan was extremely gabby.

She went on about her mother, over ten years dead now, and her mage father from a different clan. Sometimes he would accidentally catch her eyes as she continued talking about her uncle and how she wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not when he directly blamed Fen’Harel for his joint pain as he chewed elfroot to ease the strain of his craftwork, and the aunt who had almost fainted when Lavellan had first shaved her head. She spoke at great length about their daughter, a favorite cousin of hers who was a mage with a privileged position within the clan (“The First,” Lavellan had explained) and had been born just a few months before her.

As she waxed nostalgic about things she and her cousin had done as children, Cullen thought of his siblings back in Fereldan. He wondered how they were faring. Cullen irregularly got letters from his oldest sister Mia, chastising him for a number of things: not telling mother and father that he left for Kirkwall, not writing often enough, not traveling back to Honnleath for her wedding. He supposed he deserved the scolding.

A warmth permeated Lavellan’s voice, and Cullen did not need to look at her to tell that she was smiling. “And because we were about nine, this huge raccoon was _terrifying_. We ran, and it followed, hissing after us like it had an unquenchable thirst for the blood of little elf girls. We got to all these briars, and Hellathen saw a hole to the other side and tried to go through, only she got stuck in them on her hands and knees.”

Cullen remembered a story from his youth— his younger brother Branson had gotten stuck between the slats of a fence once when they were sneaking out of a neighbor’s garden from which they had stolen blackberries when they were at a similar age. He hadn’t turned quite right going through, and trapped his arm. The boy’s dismay had awoken the neighbor’s prize mabari, which rushed over to catch the interlopers in its jaws. As the baying and wailing had risen to a fever pitch, the ten-year-old Cullen had pulled Branson through the opening by the strap of his overalls, scraping his brother’s forearm to save him from the maw of the beastly dog. His brother looked at him like a hero more so than ever before after the incident— he would not pretend that he did not like the admiration.

“How did you find such an angry raccoon? Did you do something to make it like that? Never mind. Did you get your cousin out?” he found himself asking.

“No, I started to take swings at the raccoon with a stick I grabbed,” she said, “but that didn’t last long and it jumped on me. I still have a scar from where it clawed me. See?” She pointed somewhere where Cullen dared not look— he did not want to risk it. “I’m lucky the Keeper was able to vanish most of the defensive wounds. There was blood _everywhere_.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, that’s when we found out that Hellathen was a mage,” she said. “Suddenly, ice was everywhere. In more places than the blood had been. She froze the branches brittle, the raccoon almost solid, and me a little bit.”

“She would have been taken to the Circle at that point if she was not Dalish,” Cullen said almost mindlessly.

“Thanks for letting me know, Ser Templar,” Lavellan said, and Cullen caught her eyes as they rolled. “Anyways, we both just started bawling afterwards. It was fun.” Her smile began to fade and she exhaled slowly, and muttered, “Hellathen’s probably worried sick. I bet she thinks I’m dead. I used to resent her, but I don’t anymore. She’s too good a person for that.”

Lavellan blinked, and then snorted in a suppressed laugh. “I can’t believe I just told you that. I’ve never told anyone— and I told _you_. _Dirthar’ar_.”

“Well, it’s not the secret I was looking for,” Cullen admitted, grumbling slightly as he turned to look at the candle, which had burned low as she prattled about her rather uneventful childhood in the wilds of the Free Marches. Perhaps he was building trust, a sort of rapport. He supposed he had to find some way to rationalize the time he had just spent.

“Creators, since I’ve already run my mouth… she’s going to be the Keeper someday. I can’t do that, no matter what I do for the clan,” she continued, “and she’s so much prettier than me. Not that it exactly matters, being beautiful, but the way people look at her… it’s like they’re entranced, like they want to listen to what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth. But she never noticed that. Of course not.” She was quiet for a few moments, and he kept himself from reflecting on his words. “So. Cullen. Are you going to help me with my shoulder now?”

“We had a deal,” Cullen said with a nod, standing and walking to the door of the cell. “Lay down— I want your back on the ground for the entire time that the door is unlocked.”

“I can do that,” she said, and she leaned back with a grimace to extend her battered body onto the floor. Abandoning the sword that he carried outside of the cell, Cullen fumbled with the keys and opened the gate, he glanced at her as her as she stretched her long legs out. Despite the warrior’s musculature, their motion did not lack the litheness that characterized elven movement as she lowered herself horizontally on the floor, laying both of her arms at her side as she exposed her bruised ribcage.

She did not move as Cullen approached, and he found himself staring down at her prone form. He took a moment to steel himself against unwanted thoughts before resolving to touch her. He knelt beside her, and began to slowly turn her forearm outwards, her muscles spasming as she winced. Gooseflesh rose on her already chilled skin as she was handled by the cold of his gauntlets, and she gasped slightly as the arm finally popped into place.

“Thank you, Cullen,” Lavellan said, her face relaxing. Cullen liked something about that, and paused for a moment before reaching into a pouch on his belt and pulling out a small corked vial that contained a wadded mass of cloth.

She stared up at him, dark eyes wide, as he almost unthinkingly discarded his right gauntlet to enable himself to uncork the bottle and pull the moistened gauze from the glass tube and unfurl it before stuffing the empty container back into the pouch. The poultice had the sweet but biting smell that all medicines derived from elfroot bore. “This will help,” he said. “Don’t move.”

Cullen lay the wet layer of cloth against her shoulder, and Lavellan shuddered slightly as he began to smooth it onto the contours of the injured area. As he pressed it gently, the elf let out a tiny cry, and the hand on the uninjured side of her body flew upwards.

It took less than a second for Cullen to detect the threat and respond. At once he lunged, slammed her injured shoulder into the ground and pinning her arm out and above her head with the still-gauntleted hand. Over her sharp cry, he demanded, “What do you think—“

“You pressed where it hurts!” Lavellan almost spat up at him as he suddenly found himself leaning over her, pinning her down in two places in the space between him and the stone floor of the dungeon. Cullen could feel her breath on him as her chest heaved, his face mere inches from hers and all it entailed: the branching tattoos, high cheek bones dappled with freckles, big eyes, crooked nose, and cracked lips that parted ever so gently as she stared up at him. Perhaps she was not beautiful, but he found her pleasing to look upon.

‘Pleasing’ was not quite the right word— ‘maddening,’ paradoxically, might have been a better fit as it occurred to Cullen that he could kiss the woman he held beneath him. Frozen in place, he wondered how Lavellan, pliant and unarmored, would respond to such an action, or if she would acquiesce to further advances and allow him to have her on the floor with her perfect legs wrapped around him. He tried to remember if he had ever seen a glimmer of want in her eyes, if anything about him had captivated her the way her bravado captivated him on the dusk-lit riverbank.

Captivated.

“Cullen,” she breathed his name and he wished he could welcome it.

What a word.

“Cullen, my shoulder, it still…”

If he kissed her, she would likely not resist.

A hiss, and her voice rose. “Fuck. Cullen!”

She could not resist. She was at his mercy, tethered to his very whims. He could do whatever he wanted with her.

“Knight-Captain!”

And he would not even allow himself to entertain those sinful thoughts. In horror, Cullen drew back from Lavellan, springing to his feet as they numbly carried him away from her.

“You can put the poultice on yourself,” he thought he said, but he was not sure if the words came to his mouth as he backed away from her towards the door without bothering to take his discarded gauntlet. “Put your back on the floor!” he did audibly demand as she attempted to prop herself up.

Cullen slipped through the door, fumbling with the keys as he locked it behind him. He could not believe himself.

“What—“

“Nothing,” he said, tearing his eyes from her. “It’s nothing. I cannot… I must attend to other duties,” Cullen said hurriedly, disgust at himself permeating his entire being as he hurriedly withdrew from her presence. He had to leave the dungeon, he thought, and get away from her. And get away from himself. He felt as if he was drowning in whatever had muddied his earlier clarity of purpose— he needed some air, the air outside in his mountains, or perhaps to go to his bed, or perhaps to see the night sky. Without a word, he climbed the stairs as quickly as he could, blocking out her confused and strained voice calling after him.


	7. Obstruction of Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke and Anders are invited to speak with Keeper Deshonna, but only find her First and an entire clan at unrest.

It was much later in the day when Hawke, Anders, and their dour elven guides reached the Dalish camp. The camp was large, far larger than Merrill’s clan, anyways, and crowded in the small glen ledged between the stone cliffs. Dangling vegetation hung over the roofs of tightly clustered hide tents erected against their land ships, and the elves of Clan Lavellan regarded them sharply as they edged their way through the packed enclave. A thick anxiety buzzed amongst the itinerant elves.

They whispered of the new human arrivals, flanked by their own hunters a little too loudly amongst themselves in an accent both like and unlike Merrill’s at once. Though she trusted Ihassa and Kelleth as well as she could, Hawke wondered how much danger she and Anders were in. She noticed that there were no fires amongst the clan, though racks of hanging venison and fishes were not uncommon sights. The clan was in hiding, she realized, and unwilling to signal their location with a billow of smoke. Whatever altercation Knight-Captain Cullen and his men had with the elves, it was likely bad— Kelleth had implied casualties, after all.

Hawke and Anders had to step over several rings of sitting craftsmen and story circles as they made their way behind Kelleth and Ihassa towards an elf who sat cross-legged atop a rock.

“ _Aneth ara_ , _lethallin_ ,” said the elf as they approached, confused halla dispersing from around her and settling in again yards away. She finished wrapping a long strip of cloth around the shaft of a staff to make a grip. “You’ve brought _shemlen_.” Hawke felt no pejorative weight on the word as it rolled from the elf’s mouth.

“Hellathen, _lethallan_. Where is Keeper Deshonna?” Kelleth asked. “I want them to speak sense to her about the mage.”

“She’s gone up the mountain to watch out for the templars. She’s planning how to move the _aravels_ from the glen without detection. I think she wants to be gone from here.” The elf curiously peered at Hawke and Anders, as if they were some sort of strange novelty, like hand-sized Rivaini insects the color of sunrise pinned behind glass. “I’ve never actually exchanged words with humans before. What brings you here?” She tilted her head slightly, no hostility detectable in her examination of them.

Hawke began, “We’ve been lead to believe that you’re harboring a woman—“

“Lisle,” Hellathen said. “I am sorry, but she is not going with you. She is Elvhenan as we are, and has promised herself to the Old Ways, and—“

“By Elgar’nan, Hellathen,” Kelleth spat at the woman, who seemed immediately taken aback, as if she was not used to harsh words, “she’s not of The People. I thought you of all people would understand—you’ve lost your cousin to her!” 

“Adahlen died at the hands of the templars, not Lisle’s,” Ihassa admonished before the elf on the rock could respond.

“There are many here that do not see it in such a way, and you know that, Ihassa.”

“You didn’t even _like_ Adahlen! I was her friend, and—“

“So you should act the part of a friend!” Kelleth shot back, and Hawke wondered if she should interrupt the back-and-forth. “You’re right. I didn’t like her. But she was my clansmate and hunt-sister and I will afford her and Nithas the respect they deserve.”

Ihassa scoffed, the wiry muscles in his arm going taught as he struggled to suppress a more explosive fury, hissing as he spoke. “And what? Dishonor their sacrifice by giving up the mage?”

“They didn’t die for the flat-ear!” Kelleth was all rage and he boiled in his leathers as his clenched fist lingered uncomfortably close to the dagger strapped around his waist. Hawke did not take her eyes from the weapon as she calculated the best way to intercede in the situation. A joke, probably. It would at least redirect their anger towards her, where she could diffuse it. Before she could speak, Kelleth continued, “ _Fen’Harel ma halam_ , Ihassa, they died for _us_ , the _Dalish_. Adahlen and Nithas fell covering our retreat, not in defense of some Circle runaway. Letting the _shemlen_ spill our blood over that monster woman is the greatest curse upon their names I could possibly imagine!”

Ihassa's temper flared, and he too watched the knife on Kelleth’s belt with wide eyes and gritted teeth. “Do not pretend that you—“

“Enough!” Before Hawke could say anything, the seated elf jumped from her perch to stand between the two with arms outstretched, freezing the two as she intercepted them with the slim buffer of her body. “Now is not the time to fight. The decision over our course of action will not be chosen by bickering like children!” With a pained look in her eyes, she turned to Hawke and Anders, exhaling. “I am sorry. There is usually not so much discord among The People. It is a turbulent time.”

The elf that had been on the rock gripped her staff tightly in dismay, and both Ihassa and Kelleth seemed reproachful.

“Hellathen, I’m—“ Ihassa began, but she shook her head.

She smiled at him softly, but the warm look was tenuous and soon faded. Kindness still hung in her voice, gentle but sad. “You do not need to apologize, _lethallin_. You either, Kelleth. I myself am having trouble thinking straight.”

Even when she was visibly upset with a sharp frown and a furrowed brow, she was very beautiful, with smooth, dark skin and bright _vallaslin_ that almost enhanced the contours of her face. After a few moments of pained quiet, Anders spoke, motioning toward her staff. “So, you’re a mage?” he asked, questioning her as if he was asking a child in his clinic whose wounds he was cleaning with a stinging antiseptic the name of her love-worn ragdoll.

She seemed calmed by the question. “Yes, I am. I am the First of my clan. …Oh, it's rude of me not to explain, the First is…” she immediately seemed to become flustered once more.

“Ah, we know what a First is,” Hawke said. “We’ve got Dalish friends back in Kirkwall. Is Lisle here at the camp? It would be helpful if we spoke to her.”

The First nodded, her dark, shoulder-length hair bouncing with her affirmation. “Kelleth, Ihassa, I will ensure they speak to Keeper Deshonna. You two seem tired. You should rest, and perhaps bathe. How did you get so much mud on you? There is a spring somewhere around here, a little to the north. I’ve been in, it’s not as cold as you would think.”

The two seemed to heed her word, paying her a respect that was notably lacking in Clan Sabrae’s treatment of Merrill. Yet the First reminded Hawke a little of the Dalish outcast, as she seemed distant in almost the same way and carried herself with a similar dainty brittleness, almost like the flowers her mother used to press. Hawke still found the flowers, pretty and preserved, amongst the books of the mansion, discoveries that were welcome and jarring at once.

“Remember what I told you to tell the Keeper,” Kelleth shot at Hawke as he walked away, “Talk sense to her!”

As the two parted, the First introduced herself. “I am Hellathen of Clan Lavellan. Who are you two, and how did Kelleth find you?”

“Us?” Hawke laughed. “Kelleth and his friends tried to kill us, but we smoothed things over. I’m Marian Hawke. You might’ve heard of me— I’m sort of the Champion of Kirkwall.” Hawke caught Anders rolling his eyes at her, but a small smile crept onto his face. She was glad he was unoffended by her joking self-aggrandizement. New to the mighty title, she’d found over the past few months that if she made a big deal about being the Champion, other people would not be as apt to do so. It really was the best to get the fuss out of the way. Not that it mattered, as Hellathen didn’t seem very impressed by her accolades, blinking and nodding at her.

“And I’m Anders. Just Anders,” her companion said, and received the same polite treatment from the First. “I’m a mage, too. I’m glad to see that the gift of magic is not frowned upon here.”

“Humans are strange about mages,” Hellathen agreed. “My cousin read me a bit of a book about one of your Chantry Circles once. How does it not breed abominations?”

“It does,” Anders, himself an abomination spurred by the injustices of the Circle, started with a great intensity, “they just keep it quiet by—“

“Anders, not now,” Hawke interrupted. “We wouldn’t want to frighten our new friends with all the sordid details upfront. I’m surprised the Dalish read. Don’t you have your own language?”

“Fragments,” Hellathen explained, “and even less of the written word. But many of The People can read the common language. We are safer if we can.”

“Ah yes, I imagine that being able to understand ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot With Crossbow On Sight’ signs in the woods would come in handy,” agreed Hawke. She was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Is the cousin that read to you—“

“The one who the templars killed?” The First nodded, and looked down at the ground with sad hazel eyes. “Yes. Well, maybe. There has not been a body, but I suppose it is foolish to hope that she still lives. I always knew she would get into something like this. The Keeper wanted us to have better relationships with the humans. Adahlen took it upon herself to become our ambassador.” It seemed to Hawke as if Hellathen was giving her cousin’s eulogy.

“She was always discontented with being _just_ a hunter and threw herself into studying the _shemlen,_ reading their books and seeking them out to speak with them. Many thought she took it too far. I think she thought her knowledge and service would help her be chosen for warleader.”  
  
“Did it work?” Anders asked. "At making your relationship with humans better, I mean."

Hellathen nodded, albeit sadly. “We had less conflicts with humans than we ever did before, just because we had a hunter who knows of your hand-shaking custom. I should have expected the whole thing to go as wrong as it did. It really was only a matter of time until she slipped up. I shouldn't say it like it's her fault, though. No offense, Marian Hawke and Anders, but your people behave in the most nonsensical ways.”

Hawke felt another odd relief when Anders chuckled— he had seemed to be in high spirits for most of their journey, but it was still a strange and welcome deviation from his recent norm. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Hellathen was quiet for a moment, but then said, “I am sorry about Ihassa and Kelleth. They’re good men, and brave, and both only want the best for the clan. The past few days have been upsetting. Much of the clan is engaging in the same dialogue as they are. There have been only two casualties so far, but this ordeal threatens all of our futures. It has not always been so civil as that discussion, especially among those who favor killing the templars, and those who favor killing Lisle.” She closed her eyes and sighed, opening them and glancing away from Hawke and Anders and out at the bulk of the clan, huddled around their fireless pits and magnetized by the buzz of a palpable anxiety. “Everyone is afraid, but they don’t want to say it. So they simmer, and cloak their arguments as proposals of how to best honor the dead. Until…until they speak frankly, I do not think the vitriol will stop.”

“That _is_ tough…” muttered Anders.

Hawke cleared her throat. “Sorry to be impatient, but when can we see your Keeper? Or, you know, just Lisle? You do know that she’s a blood mage, right? Or did she neglect to tell you that little tidbit?” Lisle’s diary had given Hawke a great deal of pity for the woman, but the facts that she was a murderer and at high risk for possession still necessitated her recapture.

“Lisle isn’t a blood mage,” Hellathen insisted. “At least, we don’t think she is. She told us of the charges against her, so the Keeper and I checked for the typical lesions, and there are none.”

Anders shrugged weakly. “Oh, because mages _never_ heal themselves.”

“It still leaves scars.”

“Not if you have a good healer,” Anders observed. Hawke remembered that he prided himself at being able to heal even incredibly grievous wounds without leaving the mended skin marred or otherwise warped.

Hellathen frowned again. “Perhaps there is no way to tell with certainty, but I promise, we are watching her, and carefully.” She took a long pause, as if summoning the strength to speak. Coolly and deliberately, she said, “Regardless of what you have heard of the Dalish, we are not a violent people. You are our guests, Marian Hawke and Anders, here because of Kelleth’s invitation. We will treat you as such, with kindness and hospitality. However, we will protect our own. If you attempt to bring Lisle back to her Circle with anything other than your words—”

Hawke finished her sentence for her. “We die. It’s understood.”


	8. Obstruction of Morality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan calls for Cullen in the middle of the night, and the two hit a tipping point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some sexual content in this chapter.
> 
> in uninteresting news from the author's life: school starts in like a week for me wow, and also i found an 103 chapter john cena/oc fanfic that is of similar quality to my writing (read as: bad) and i've read like 30 chapters of it and i feel like i have seen the face of some lovecraftian horror and i just keep going
> 
> and this is why school needs to start

Cullen returned to his tiny, cramped quarters intending to sleep, but rest eluded him. This was not the first time his mind had turned on him, but it was one of the first times he could credit corruption to no source but himself. Too uncomfortable and overheated in the cool air of the Vimmarks even for his smallclothes, he stripped himself of everything and collapsed into his bed over the covers, exhausted and frustrated.

He could blame the elf, of course he could blame the elf. It was easier that way. Lavellan had a strange allure to her, an alien elegance that he felt must not sit quite at home even amongst her people. Blessed Andraste, was she strange in the most unsettling way, her odd arrogance baffling and intoxicating. The smug grin she wore on her soft-looking lips had no right to be there. Lavellan was a captive, helpless and hopeless, yet she persisted in her defiance. She had gained more than he had out of their deal— cooperation for medical care— and Cullen vastly regretted having agreed to her terms, or having followed through on his part after she spent what had seemed like an eternity regaling him with useless information.

Part of Cullen knew that something of the sort might happen going into it, but he had wanted so badly to be good by her. He had not been good by anyone in so long, not nearly good enough. He could not afford to be good, not practically, not professionally. Now, Cullen was outside of Kirkwall, away from Meredith, away from the Gallows, and was able to do things his own way, but to what end? It was easier when he had no choice but to follow orders and accept them as such. Cullen wondered if he was overcompensating towards Lavellan, being too soft. He had made no progress in his endeavor to recapture the blood mage and had found himself saddled with inappropriate impulses towards a prisoner.

Perhaps Lavellan intended for him to want her as part of some seduction. Cullen could certainly oblige that intent, if he could allow himself by letting go of all propriety, morality, and good judgment.  


He found his arousal, which had stirred as he looked upon her beneath him on the cell floor, returning and unthinkingly his hand drifting to grip his cock as he thought of pressing into her, Lavellan writhing in pleasure between him and the stone floor of the cell, or better yet, the sheets of his bed, or of running his fingers over her thick brush of hair as she knelt before him to take him in her mouth, imagining a wet warmth that his working hand could not bring.

He imagined Lavellan’s moans and panting, familiar somehow, as he stroked himself, and pictured the smug smile wiped from her face by a blank and desperate expression of want, her big elven eyes alternatively wide and screwed shut between keens. Yet that grin, so characteristic of Lavellan— brilliant, laughing Lavellan— floated back to Cullen’s mind, ecstatic and urging somewhere beyond her shapely hips and round breasts, and it did not take long until he spilled his seed onto his stomach as he found release.

As the white glow from his orgasm ebbed, Cullen found his masturbatory fantasy souring as he remembered that his weight would likely bring pain to her still broken ribs and that her lip was still cracked and bloodied.

It wasn’t even that Lavellan would likely take prolonged intimacy as an opening to attempt to strangle him, or that she would probably try to bite his cock off as soon as he allowed it anywhere near her mouth.

It was that she was a prisoner.

Even if she _was_ trying to seduce him, so much as touching her put him on the same level as the templars who fucked Tranquils, doll-like and uncaring in their obedience, or worse, those who coerced unwilling mages into performing sexual favors with threats and violence. Cullen had already come too close to that, done too much.

A brand new distaste, this time at his impulsive onanism, welled within Cullen. Lavellan was his charge, his responsibility, his captive— as obstructive and obnoxious as she was, her fate rest in his hands, dirtied as they now were. Cullen had sworn to be a protector of good, a defender of justice. Defenders of justice did not derive any sort of sexual gratification from beaten and bloodied women behind bars.

He let out an angry groan and reached to grab his used smalls to clean the mess on his stomach, wiping his spend from the blonde hair that trailed down his torso. He irritably tossed the garment aside, and heard a slight clinking noise as it knocked over a vial of lyrium that sat on the bureau. He exhaled again in frustration, the very last vestiges of relaxation and pleasure fading, soreness and tension returning to his shoulders. At least he hadn’t heard the vial breaking, he thought.  


Cullen weakly wondered if the Maker was somehow testing him with all this, trying to judge him worthy or not of walking in his Holy Sight. As trying as the ordeal was, it seemed insignificant and paltry compared to what he had been through before. He hadn’t succumbed to any of Uldred’s promises. Why would the Maker challenge him with Lavellan? She was just a woman, and not even a mage— just a singularly unfortunate and obstinate elf.

A knock sounded at his door. “Knight-Captain, ser?”

Cullen didn’t answer for a moment.

“Knight-Captian?”

“What?” Cullen asked, his frustration with himself flaring up in his voice, ready to redirect itself at any available target.

“I’m sorry, Knight-Captain, ser, but Ser Derrick sent me— the prisoner’s been yelling for you.” Cullen froze, and slowly exhaled, his irritation dissolving into confusion and a strange dread.  


Cullen was half-tempted to tell the man at the door to let her rot, but realized it was likely imprudent to do so. Perhaps she was finally willing to talk. Well, give up useable information. She had already talked quite a bit. “Right. I’ll be down. Dismissed,” he called, pulling himself from the bed and rummaging through his trunk for a pair of clean smalls.

He put on his shirt and pants, but did not bother with armor. Instead, Cullen took a second shirt from his affects and rushed down the stairs with his boots barely laced.

He entered the dungeons minutes later.

“Knight-Captain,” Ser Derrick said with a salute, “She says—“

“ _Aneth-ara,_ Cullen. I said I would speak with you alone,” Lavellan said, standing towards the bars of the cell. For a moment, Cullen did not want to look at her, considering what he had just done, but he fought through the urge to avert his gaze.

“Right, ser, she said that,” said Ser Derrick. “Should I?"  


“Go,” Cullen said, more tersely than he intended. “I mean, dismissed.”

Ser Derrick scrambled up the stairs, clanging the way to the top in his armor.

Cullen walked further into the dungeons until he was face to face with the woman. The elfroot poultice seemed to be dried and discarded next to the sponge of drinking water and his abandoned gauntlet, and she moved her shoulder as if it were uninjured. “Lavellan. What do you want of me?”

She seemed anxious, her hand rattling against the bar as she shook. “Why did you become a templar?” she asked. “To find an opportunity to stand before the corrupt and wicked and not falter? To keep peace, or champion the just?”

Cullen did not answer. “You know the Chant of Light. Are you—?"  


“Andrastean? _Dread Wolf_ , no,” Lavellan said, emphasizing the name of one of her dieties. “But you don’t forget words like that once you’ve heard them. Is that why you wanted to be a templar?”

“Why are you asking me? And why did you call me down for this?”

“I didn’t wake you, Cullen.”

He exhaled sharply, and stared at her expecting to see her grin. It was absent. Cullen was silent for a moment, and then said, “You’re not going to play on my sympathies like this, you know.”

She shook her head. “I’m not playing on your _sympathies_.”

Cullen’s nostril flared, and for a while he did not respond to the assertion. After watching her shift slightly in her cell, the suddenly sinful stretches of her bare body capturing his gaze, Cullen finally threw his shirt through the bars. “Put this on.”

She stared at the garment that he had tossed at her. “What?” he said. “It’s a shirt.”

“I know it’s a shirt,” Lavellan answered, weighing the fabric of the garment in her hands. “Why are you giving it to me? Aren’t you supposed to keep me completely miserable?”

“I already helped you with your shoulder, didn’t I?” Cullen scrunched his nose, not wanting to admit that he would rather she cover herself for his own sake. “Just…put it on.”

“Fine,” Lavellan said, slipping the shirt over her head. She winced in pain from the motion of pulling it down and straightening the fabric. Cullen’s shirt was large on her, meant for a human man, and covered her well. “Thank you.”

“Oh, uhm… you’re welcome.” The cold cordiality made Cullen feel a little better— perhaps politeness to a prisoner was not _protocol_ , but it was oddly calming to him.

“So tell me. Were you promised to the Order as a child?”

“No,” Cullen answered, entertaining her line of questioning. It was more comforting than his own thoughts. “I chose it.”

“Why?”  


“I don’t know,” Cullen said, half a lie. “It’s the Maker’s work. Magic is dangerous.”

Lavellan laughed, almost barking. Her lip was torn open again. “Is that what you said as a child? Little Cullen, fantasizing about his religious duty?” The small grin that her laughter brought quickly faded. “Actually, you do seem like the type.  


Cullen rolled his eyes, attempting to mask his discomfort with her needling behind a scoff. He still did not want to look at her, not after what he had done in his quarters, but would not back down from her verbal engagement. “Because you know me, Lavellan? I wouldn’t pretend to know why you chose to be a hunter.”

“I didn’t choose, not really. I always wanted to be Keeper,” Lavellan explained, and he remembered what she had said about her pretty cousin. “But I haven’t got magic. Hunter’s really the best I could do. Maybe I’ll be warleader, eventually.”

“You don’t like being Dalish,” Cullen ventured. It was not a risky guess.  


She did not answer the question, but she might as well have. “It’s a small world. It’s important, I think, but small. Limited. Not like your Order. The templars have been around for how many ages now?”

Cullen answered, “Since the Divine Age, in the Order’s current form,” and remembered the struggle he had remembering dates and keeping history in order as a teenager— as much as he loved the Chant and the tales of daring knights who saved smallfolk from abominations and malificarum, he could hardly ever keep even the ages straight on the accords and summits that had shaped the Templar Order.

Lavellan shook her head, the grin that haunted Cullen’s fantasies floating onto her face. “And to think that I was just waiting to run into something so big, so huge. Of course it’s the thing that’s going to kill me.”

“You’re not going to—“

“Die?” she said, shrugging. The lids of her big eyes drooped, and seemed focused on some distance outside of the dungeons, beyond the stone walls that kept her. The bravado that had characterized all her preceding speech to him, and she tiredly said, “You’ve been starving me for three days, my rib’s broken, and you’re beginning to freak out. I know I’ll start losing fingers soon enough. Why haven’t you tortured me yet?”

He didn’t answer her immediately, instead wondering if it had really been such a short time since they had fought. Everything was within a disorienting haze. Maker, it seemed so much longer than that, days of perusing records and rushing back and forth from the hold, attempting to join the search but being unable to on account of administrative duties. It was tiring, but hardly different from his time in Kirkwall, where he had to balance pushing papers and his duties at the Gallows with his desire to _go_ and personally defend the people of Kirkwall from malificarum.

The latter was closer to what he had imagined templars did when he was a boy in Honnleath, sitting in supplication on the rough-hewn oaken pews of the village Chantry, reciting the Chant of Light between his chores. _Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._ Perhaps he’d had a very juvenile understanding of the Canticle of Benedictions as a child. He could at least blame Lavellan fully for planting _that_ chain of thought within his head.

Cullen rubbed the new crack above his lip to hide his mouth as he finally replied to her with another half-truth. “None of the men here have any experience.” He concluded that the cut had scarred— the healing salve had done its job in erasing most of the other marks.

“But you do. And, from what I heard, you brought men with you.” Lavellan raised her brow slightly, and crossed her arms, utilizing the new range of motion available to her. “You’re from Kirkwall. All of the Marches knows about what happens in the Gallows.”

A defensiveness welled up within him as he tore his hand away from his face. Lavellan was a member of a vagrant society with no real connection to civilization— how would she know of the Free Marches’ views of Kirkwall? “You’ve no right to speak on matters that you do not understand.”

“So you’re telling me that there isn’t rampant abuse in your Circle? The tales are…” she looked for a word, ”lurid, but I haven’t been given any tastes of _Kirkwall hospitality_. Or is torture reserved for mages?”

A threatening note welled in Cullen’s voice. “Not in the least. It may happen to you yet.” For a moment, he fully intended to take action against the infuriating elf. Cullen could order her strapped to the disused rack, slowly dismembering her already weary form, or have her hung and whipped until she was covered in red welts and could no longer scream her agony to the world. This was the part where he normally went numb, but the numbness did not come. Terror at the images flashing through his head overtook Cullen, and he grounded himself by staring ahead at the prisoner, who a mere moment ago had been the last person he had ever wanted to look at.

She was still there, behind the bars. He had done nothing yet, nothing too bad, nothing unforgiveable. He had hardly touched her, and he resolved to not touch her again, not for any reason.

Lavellan wavered as she stood bolted in her cell. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down slightly— a nervous tic? Cullen tore his gaze away from her lips when her large, dark eyes swiveled to focus on him.

“You don’t like doing that sort of thing to people, do you? You’re not squeamish, or against violence. You wouldn’t have been promoted to Knight-Captain if you were.” She quirked her shaved head, her big, pointed ears seeming almost askew.

Silence settled between the two as they stood close to the bars. Their eyes finally met again, and the acuity that had been in her gaze faded slightly.

Lavellan swallowed, slowly and weakly exhaling, as if she was weighing her words. “You’ve been tortured, haven’t you?”

Blood drained from Cullen’s face and he felt as if everything within him had dropped into some abyss beyond his feet. He felt his breathing, in and out and in as the memories of horrors, psychic and physical, dashed themselves against some bulwark within him, the impressions of the demons’ hands burning into his brain at bay behind some sort of mental floodgate. His chest heaved as he summoned the will to speak. “You can’t assume that…” he couldn’t finish, but she picked up, shaking her head.

“No, I can’t. But the way you reacted—” Lavellan might as well have said ‘Got you’ and grinned again.

“Shut up,” Cullen shot at her, eyes wide. He was suddenly disgusted, and hoping that the disgust would purge him of the tenuously contained deluge. She’d thrown a low blow and left him shaking. “Shut up! Is this what your game is? Do you want to drive me insane?! Open old wounds and pick at them? I will not allow you—”

“Cullen, I didn’t intend—“

“Keep my name out of your mouth.” He found himself tearing away from the bars, but was jerked back with a sharp pull at his wrist.

Lavellan had reached through the bars of her cell and grabbed his arm and yanked him towards her. As badly as he wanted to leave, he did not free himself from her grasp. Even if she had triggered the episode, she was there, warm and solid against the suddenly swimming world as she held him in place. “Don’t go, Knight-Captain, not again,” she pleaded. “Please! I…wouldn’t use that sort of thing against you.”

She was lying through her teeth, and he could tell. Yet the words were meant for comfort, so he stayed, his arm stretched behind him and still firmly within her hand. His voice came out quiet and low. “You’re not a good liar, Lavellan.”

“I _won’t_ do it, then. I promise. Please stay.”

It felt strange to be given such a promise— she somehow had wrapped her fingers around something raw and sick inside of him that no one had ever touched. Lavellan had every opportunity to twist and gouge, yet she was claiming that she would not, even if she had every reason in the world to. He wished with all of his heart that he could trust her. Cullen was terrified as she pulled him in to face her, mere inches separating them through the bars. “Why do you wish so badly for me to stay here?” he asked, looking down at her tattooed face, hoping to find some intent in her big, dark eyes.

“Because I’m terrified,” Lavellan said, raising up slightly onto her toes, “and I really do like you.” She leaned forward and caught his mouth with hers, chastely lingering for no longer than a second, the moisture from her mouth just touching his lips. Cullen’s still-panicking heart leaped, stunned by the gentle advance.

Lavellan separated from him and began to sink down from her tiptoes, but Cullen, his mind racing, pulled her back to claim her mouth again as he had so shamefully wanted to do when he had her pinned to the stone floor of the cell.

Her lips were as soft as he had imagined them to be. Holding her to him through the slats, he deepened the kiss, spurred by both a stark vulnerability and a rising desire to spite his own self-disgust and everything else that had ever used his want against him. She moaned in slight pain as he accidentally sucked at the broken part of her lip, but it did not deter her from running her hand up his cheek and into his hair, where she entangled her pretty elven fingers. He finally freed his hand from Lavellan’s grasp, and used his newfound range of motion to reach down into the cell and pull her towards him by the small of her back. She was there before him, solid and real, tangible and grounding.

She arched, moaning again into his mouth, and one of her breasts fell between the bars of the cell to press against his chest. Lavellan broke from his lips and began to graze his jaw and neck with her mouth, nipping just-harder than gently as she forced noises of pleasure from his throat and twitches of arousal from his cock, which was growing hard again despite his earlier release. Cool air prickled at his side as her hand snaked its way into his shirt, caressing his stomach before dipping into his pants, gently stroking him under his smalls. Cullen found himself glad that he did not wear his armor down to the dungeons, and cursed the barrier between them for impeding his free reign of her.

He could open the door once more, Cullen thought, and then he could have her. It was all he had to do to remove the obstruction from between him and the prisoner.

Even more sickening the second time than the first, Cullen suddenly wrenched himself away from Lavellan, pulling the confused and addled elf along with him as her hand was forcibly withdrawn from his pants. She let out a yelp as her head and bruised ribcage were smashed against the bars, her arms still outstretched to where she had been gripping him.

“Cullen—“ she said, breathlessly and urgently.

The templar shook his head rapidly, staring at her once more. He had fallen into the same trap twice in one day, only he had gone so much further this time. Even if she had initiated the contact, what he had done was wrong. He was wrong to want her, wrong to touch her, wrong to see her as anything more than an obstacle to his goal. His voice was hoarse as he backed away towards the far wall, dazedly wiping his mouth of her as the heat left from the impression of her body dispersed and faded from him. “No. We will not. We cannot.”

She tried to start speaking again, but he cut her off. “I…I like you too, Lavellan,” he confessed. “Believe me.”

She had pulled herself back, and was standing upright again, no longer splayed against her restraints. “I do.” She reached out toward him again, and disgust and desire muddled together in torrid, confused eddies as he stared at the entreating palm.

His words were heavy, but he did not really feel like he was speaking them as the numbness he so direly wanted came not from his bidding but from his necessity. “Then know that it is difficult for me to say this: If you do not divulge the location of your clan by tomorrow morning, you will be put to torture, and a confession _will be forced_. This nonsense has drawn on for far too long.”

He could not look at her as he turned to rush up the stairs, her screams to him once more cutting into him like claws in his back.


	9. Obstruction of Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke and Anders fight a blood mage.

“Is there any chance at all that she’s not lying about not being a blood mage? Because I can’t see anyone just admitting it, especially not after she’s found a place to hide with all of these elves,” Anders whispered as he and Hawke followed behind the First and the Keeper, who had agreed to take Hawke to the mage upon returning from her vigil late after the sun had sank over the mountain tops. “Because if she is, there’s no way this turns out well. Look at all the people here…”

Hawke wondered if elves’ large ears made their hearing more sensitive, and made a mental note to run tests on Merrill and Fenris, but she whispered back, “Well, we’ll have to interrogate her and find out. You’ve read Varric’s book. We can play good cop, bad cop.” Or good cop, possessed with a vengeful spirit cop, Hawke thought. Whatever worked, really.

Lisle sat at a small woven mat at an orb of magical light that bathed her face in a soft, warm light and huddled amongst three young elves, one of which had not even earned his _vallaslin_. Hawke heard them speaking as she approached with Anders, Hellathen, and Keeper Deshonna.

“I’m sorry I put you through this. Really. It’s my fault,” Lisle said, almost hiding behind her overgrown tawny brown bangs. She spoke with a faint Orlesian accent, and was somewhat pretty in a very small way, awkward-looking amongst the Dalish in her blue Circle robes, which seemed worn and torn. Hawke wondered why she didn’t change into something more substantial and less frumpy— most of the Dalish seemed to have very fun getups.

“Humans will always do this sort of thing,” one of the elves said. “It’s not your fault that you were born a mage. We would have the same struggles you did if we were not fortunate enough to be of The People.” They were likely all mages, Hawke realized. 

“ _Da’len_ ,” said Keeper Deshonna, “there are humans from Kirkwall here to speak with you. You three should run along, it’s late.” The three young elves dispersed at her order, and Deshonna, a thin woman with curly hair the color of nutmeg and the first signs of aging striping her face beneath her blue-grey tattoos, watched them as they ran off amongst the halla. The one who had not earned his _vallaslin_ turned back and snapped, the orb vanishing with him.

Lisle had frozen, and looked directly at the ground as the group approached. “Humans are here. You let them come here to take me. You said you wouldn’t and I…”

“Hold on,” Hawke said attempting to calm her before she began summoning demons or something of the sort, “Don’t get excited. We just want to talk, for now. I’m Marian Hawke.”

Lisle jumped. “Maker! …uh, Creators, I should say now… The _Champion_? Did Bethany send you?”

“No,” Hawke said. “Knight-Captain Cullen did.”

“We’re not working for him, though,” Anders insisted.

Hawke crossed her arms. “But we’re not big fans of blood magic ourselves, Lisle.”

“They’re saying I did it, aren’t they?” Lisle swallowed. “I’ve… I’ve never done blood magic. And if I was ever going to, watching Maeva kill those templars with it would have changed my mind.”

“Maeva?” Hawke asked. “She’s the blood mage? Didn’t you… kill her?”

Lisle began to shake her head, breathing quickly. Hawke wondered if she was doing to hyperventilate. “…They…they think she’s dead. Of course they think she’s dead. They’re not looking for her, and she’s just… out there somewhere.” She put her forehead in her palm. Hellathen tentatively edged over to Lisle, and rest a hand on her shoulder.

“You threatened Maeva in your diary,” Anders said. “So we had reason to believe…”

“You found my diary,” Lisle squeaked. “How embarrassing. I…I guess I wanted to. I don’t know if I could have.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened at the Gallows?” Hawke crossed her arms, frowning slightly. “The whole thing. We’re willing to listen.”

The elf looked at the ground. “Can we walk a while, Keeper Deshonna? I…need air. It’s crowded here,” she said, glancing at the sea of other elves milling around in the gorge.

Silently as the stars began to rise, Hawke, Anders, Lisle, and the two Dalish elves walked slowly from the glen through a small hole in the rock walls to a mountain path lined with sloping green timber. Anders conjured his own small orb of light that illuminated their trail with a bright golden glow, bathing the boughs in a gentle, warm light.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Lisle said. “I’ve been with Clan Lavellan for a week. I’m just beginning to relax enough to appreciate all this.”

“We should come to the mountains more often,” Hawke said to Anders, paying heed as he peered over the edge of a ridge into a small, tree-lined valley filled by his light and that of the moon and stars overhead.

The blonde mage laughed, though his eyes remained trained on Lisle. “For what? Camping? No thanks, I did enough of that in Amaranthine. Well, I would camp if you wanted to. We could make it fun.” A small smile laced with a sadness that Hawke did not understand floated onto his face.

They continued on for a little while longer, and ended on a peak to the north of the campsite that looked down on the elves. No fires shone in the Dalish camp, but Hawke could still see a few small pricklings of light conjured by mages and the white hides of the halla reflecting the light of the heavens huddled against each other below her.

“So,” Hawke said, “Are we going to talk about the weather, or what? Pleasant air we have up here, right?” She’d rather Lisle start the conversation about the deaths in the Gallows— Hawke felt uncomfortable prying, though she supposed that it was her job.

“Right. Of course. It’s why we walked up here.” She was quiet for a moment, and began to talk, shakily and nervously, as if recalling a nightmare. “Maeva and I were… _together_ in one of the empty instruction rooms. We…we were lovers, I suppose. Not suppose, I guess,” she floundered with words, language an unwieldly tool at her tongue, “We were lovers. But…but, some templars came in, probably to use the room for the same reason. But they lost it when they saw us there. They said they would punish us for sneaking around, and one of them _grabbed_ me. And he said he was going to….to do something very bad to me. Something disgusting,” she said. “Bethany made me promise to carry a knife in case… incase someone tried to hurt me. So I panicked. I panicked and I stabbed him in the neck while he was trying to hold me down. He wasn’t expecting me to not use magic. So there was blood all over, and the second one called for more people, and as soon as she heard that, Maeva grabbed the knife. She stabbed herself, and… it just… all tore apart. The room. The templars. And before I knew it, we were in the water, gone.

“I don’t know how I didn’t drown. When we got to shore, Maeva told me that she’d been planning our escape for weeks, that she’d been using demons or something else evil to destroy our phylacteries. She said we could be together, safe forever. And… after seeing what she did… I couldn’t. I just… I couldn’t. I…ran away from our campsite the first night while she was asleep and stole a horse. And I just rode west without stop, away from Kirkwall. It was luck that I found the clan, or, rather, that the clan found me.”

“Well, you can’t call your week boring, can you?” Hawke japed. It actually sounded downright traumatic, but Lisle laughed slightly through the beginnings of sniffling tears.

Anders pursed his lips before suddenly saying, “We know what Maeva did to you.”

Tears began streaming down Lisle’s face in earnest, and Hawke wondered if she should chide Anders for opening that particular can of worms. “Bethany knew. I had to beg her to not intervene. It’s why she gave me the dagger, why she told me to go to Orsino. But what would he have done? Talked to her? Gotten the templars to watch us every moment of every day?” She frowned. “The templars say we’re in the Circle for our protection. Even the nice ones. Especially the nice ones. But the moment we need protection, it’s like we did something wrong. If I’d have drawn any attention to myself… it’d be such a short time before they thought I needed to become Tranquil. Definitely now, if they don't put me to death.” She seemed very upset, as if she were about to burst into tears.

“The Circles do nothing but breed injustice.” Ice permeated Anders’ voice, and Hawke balked slightly as she thought she saw a tinge of glowing blue dancing around his whites like jumping electricity. She reached to the side to grab his wrist, and she noticed a slight tremble to the man.

“I didn’t hate the Circle,” Lisle choked, not noticing the other mage’s brewing rage. “Not even after what happened to me in the White Spire. That was just one templar, I told myself. But then when it got bad with Maeva, and the Circle made it impossible to escape. No running, no hiding. She’d always just…be there, and there was no one that could help me. It was best just to be quiet, to take the beatings and accept whatever she would do to me.”

“But you shouldn’t have have to,” Anders said in a softer voice, calmer in Hawke’s grip as she stroked his forearm with her thumb. “It’s wrong that you had to go through that.”

“And you will never have to deal with that here,” Hellathen interjected. “I promise.”

Lisle looked at the ground. “Even after we had to run from the templars because of me?”

“Out of curiosity,” Hawke asked, “are you really that afraid of the templars? This clan is pretty big…”

“Clan Lavellan would have no trouble with the men from Highstone Hold,” Deshonna said. “But when you kill humans, more humans come until there are too many and they overwhelm you. It has happened to many a clan. We’ve worked hard to keep relations cordial when we run in to humans.”

“I heard that one of the dead hunters was your ambassador. I always thought the Dalish didn’t have much contact with humans.”

“Many clans do not,” Deshonna explained. “But in many parts of the Marches, humans are unavoidable. And I also see the benefit to some of their goods.” She ran a finger along a golden spyglass that was attached to her belt with a leather strap. “Some say it is contrary to the Old Ways to engage in trade and diplomacy. But how well can elves keep to the Old Ways if we are not secure and flourishing? We can remember. We always have. But some day, we must rebuild.” She paused. “Elven _life_ is paramount above all things. If I found interaction with humans to be inherently detrimental to any members of the clan, now including Lisle, I would order the clan to withdraw from it.”

“I imagine many of the Dalish find your views confusing,” ventured Hawke.

“Trust me, I thought I would never hear the end of it at the _Arlathvhen_ ,” Deshonna replied, rolling her eyes in a manner that Hawke would expect from a person more than a decade her junior. She gave a small smile, exacerbating the lines of aging on her face.

“Excuse me, Keeper, but…if we have to run and hide for me, is it worth it?” Lisle asked. “I…could go back. Two elves have already died— I’m not worth this.”

“And then what?” Hellathen asked. She looked at Hawke quickly before drawing a heavy breath and speaking. “I have told the humans how the whole clan speaks of honoring the dead, and the wishes of Adahlen and Nithas. I cannot speak for Nithas, but Adahlen was like a sister to me. And perhaps I cannot speak for her, either, but… I think I know how she might have felt.”

“And how is that, _da’len_?” Deshonna asked, carefully appraising her First.

Hellathen swallowed. “Adahlen would not want us to give up. I imagine that when… when she died, she went spitting in the face of the Order. And I think it would disappoint her if we just…capitulated. She would be very upset if her death was for nothing, you know? She’d really hate the idea that she just died in an accident, a misunderstanding. Oh, I should really find a way to contact Adahlen’s father’s clan so he can know, but how…?” She frowned, thinking as she trailed off.

Hawke was still unsure if she was telling the truth about not being a blood mage. The fact that she offered to go back and face Tranquility or death was certainly unusual, but Hawke was aware that it could be a feint. “You can stay here, Lisle. I could probably try and get the templars called off. It’s not like I don’t have sway with the Order.”

“Wait a minute,” Anders suddenly piped, “didn’t you say that Maeva escaped with you? There’s still a blood mage on the loose somewhere!”

No sooner did Anders speak than shriek rang forth from Lisle, who was shaking and pointing through her earlier tears. “I came here to _escape_ ,” she wailed.

“I knew you’d walk away from the elves sooner or later, dearest,” came a sugar-sweet voice. Though the woman, pale with long, dark, pin-straight hair was not wearing a Circle robe, Hawke could only assume that she was Maeva. “Didn’t I tell you? No one will ever love you like I do, darling. How long can you stay away?”

Clearly, the Keeper made the same inference. “Leave this place, blood mage.” Deshonna did not have a staff, but her hand began crackling viciously with electric charge. “Or else we will have to make you.”

Hellathen unstrapped her staff from her back. “You’re unwelcome here, _shemlen_.”

Maeva took a step forward, but her move was immediately countered by a singeing bolt of lightning thrown from Deshonna’s hand. Hawke rushed to draw her daggers as Maeva pulled a small dirk from her belt— the mage stabbed her hand and in a rush of red spray, she was gone.

Hawke urgently looked around as she prepared her weapons. “Where is she?!”

Anders let out a surprised noise. “Lisle!”   
  
The little elven mage let out a cry of alarm and released a field of clumsy but vicious force energy to push Maeva away, and though it fractured the trees behind her, the blood mage rushed through the shockwave.

Hawke lunged, trying to put herself between Lisle and Maeva’s dirk, but her interception was too late as a sick, squelching noise and a scream from Lisle rang out.

“How dare you try and hurt me! After all I’ve done for you!”

The blood mage had to abandon her dirk when Hawke forced her back off Lisle, slashing wildly but with a targeted precision to fend her away from the now screaming elf.

“Anders! Take care of Lisle!” Hawke tried to call as one of her blades grazed the retreating mage’s forearm. Maeva raised her hand, a fireball forming, and Hawke realized that she had to draw back, and fast— she jumped away from billowing flames with a twisting handspring.

When Hawke found herself on her feet again, safe from the explosion, she saw that the fire had caught Lisle, who screamed on the ground in her burning robes. Thinking quickly, Hawke threw a grenade of the sticky substance onto her, smothering the fire as it exploded.

“Anders!” Hawke yelled again, rushing to Lisle on the ground. Her friend did not come to the fallen mage’s aid— he was instead chasing down Maeva with Hellathen and Deshonna, glints of glowing blue radiating from him in his dogged pursuit.

“Lisle, it will be okay,” Hawke said breathlessly, checking her pockets for some sort of elfroot poultice that she could potentially apply to the woman, who was no longer writhing. There was nothing in any of her pouches, Hawke realized, beginning to panic. “Come on, it’ll be okay,” she insisted to the burnt form on the ground. Lisle did not respond. “Anders!” Hawke screamed, but was met by the noises of fighting growing more and more distant.

Hawke took a look at Lisle, her heart pounding. She wasn’t moving, her chest no longer rising with pained breaths. Something in Hawke froze, and that freed every other part of her to move, away, up towards the mages who were locked in a struggle. 

By the time she reached the mages, Hellathen had fallen back, panting as spiked spires of bloody material writhed forth from Maeva’s hands, attempting to stab both Anders and Keeper Deshonna as the mages renewed barriers to defend themselves. Deshonna seemed untouched, but focused solely on the blood mage— she did not notice Anders’ eyes glowing blue.

Anders, paying no mind to his own new cuts and bruises as he threw volleys of fireballs forth at Maeva. He had been so upset by the journal, Hawke only had moment to think, and the desperate pain of the abused woman. Of course it spurred the spirit within him to action. Hawke wondered if the spirit’s indignation stemmed more from Justice or Vengeance, or if the two aspects of the entity could be distinguished any longer. 

Flanking her as quietly as she could in the dark of the mountain path, Hawke ran to stab Maeva in the back, and the blade connected, burying itself in her shoulder. As Hawke attempted to free the dagger from Maeva’s shoulder, one of the tendrils of blood caught her, flinging her aside and up without the knife before whipping her viciously into the ground.

Winded and jarred, she immediately began to roll away from the confrontation, resolving to get back on her feet to resume the fight with her remaining blade, but instead she stumbled as she tried to rise, falling down the mountain. Another tendril came at her, stabbing, and caught her shoulder, piercing and burrowing into her flesh. Involuntarily, a scream came from Hawke’s mouth as she closed her eyes prepared for another blow.

It never came as the pain in her shoulder abated. When she chose to look again, Anders, his eyes warm, brown and entirely his own, was at her side kneeling and looking down at her. “Are you okay?”

Hawke did not remember to nod as she looked up the slope. Deshonna was fending Maeva off with wave after wave of electricity.

“Hawke, are you okay?!” Anders repeated worriedly.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she breathed, and Anders nodded as he rushed to rejoin Deshonna. Hawke was not far behind him, but by the time she reached the area of the fray, Maeva was fleeing as Deshonna sent harder and stronger volleys of electricity. 

There was another splash of blood from Maeva’s retreating form, and she vanished, silence settling over the wood. All were quiet for a moment, the still panting Hellathen walking to rejoin them and attempting to hold her staff up in defense. Nothing struck from the shadows and Hawke accepted that she must have fled.

“Where’s Lisle?” Anders finally asked, and at the reminder, Hawke took off running again, beckoning him.

“Come on, she needs a healer!” Hawke said as she reached the pile of burnt and bloodied Circle robes on the ground.

Anders hands glowed as he approached her, but Lisle did not move, nor did the mangled flesh regenerate. “No…” he muttered, and he attempted to turn her over to look at her face.

Lisle’s eyes were blank, and her head lolled weakly to the side, and the lump that had been forming in Hawke’s throat solidified.

“No, no, no no,” Anders said, sending more and more energy into the inert figure.

Hawke was loath to make the declaration: “Anders, she’s dead.”


	10. Obstruction of Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan's extraordinary luck becomes Cullen's extraordinary luck.

The next morning, Cullen shook too hard to take his injection of lyrium, and issued the cold and sick torture orders to Knight-Lieutenant Yarrow in the mess after a sleepless, tormented night. He considered eating, but could not get anything down— so much for his returned appetite.

“Straight to the rack, or—“ Yarrow began, but Cullen cut him off.

“String her up to be whipped first.” His words were logged with a sort of emptiness— he could not allow himself to feel anything about what was about to transpire. He at least hoped that Lavellan would divulge information about her clan’s location during the whipping, and escape the situation with welts alone. He could forgive himself for that, probably.

Cullen, flexing the hand in the borrowed gauntlet he wore, forced himself to remember that he had sent many people to be tortured in Kirkwall. This would be no different, he tried to reason. He just had to be physically involved this time, which he _should_ have been able to do. It was part of his job, and he’d spent the past few days quite miserably failing at it. 

Especially when he had kissed a prisoner. It was worse than being unable to locate the blood mage. Difficult situations and unsolvable cases were unavoidable realities. The same could not be said for complete losses of control over one's own judgment. Cullen knew that it was likely that Lavellan was manipulating him, trying to get him to open the cell door. He was not stupid enough to think that she did not have her own game afoot, and realized that she had initiated the physicality, but he still felt as if he had taken advantage of her. She was not the first person in his custody that he had noticed was attractive, nor was she the first that he had _liked_ (and he did like her, he had decided—her big smile and affected bravado were charming in a strange way that made his gut churn). But she was the first he had ever _touched_ in such a manner. 

He had spent the whole evening laying awake in bed, joylessly replaying the scene in his head. Cullen could never go back to an untarnished position of uncompromised morality. Uldred and his demons had broken his mind but never his resolve— dancing images of his wildest fantasies could not shatter him, yet he had succumbed the moment that Lavellan had laid her hands on him. Cullen felt as if there was some sort of disgusting irony to the situation.

Cullen made his way down to the dungeons to see her again, feet heavy in his greaves as he descended. When he finally got to the bottom, his immediate direction was towards her cell, which he had approached many times over the past few days. He forced himself to turn away, down another poorly-lit hallway of crumbing stone.

“Knight-Captain Cullen, ser,” Ser Derrick said, raising his gauntlet to a black eye, “we got her here. It wasn’t easy, but we did it.”

The bay of the torture chamber was large, as if it had been designed to hold many unfortunate people at once. Rows of blades and twisted instruments hung along the walls. There were three racks, and a series of clamps and screws designed to mangle the human body beyond recognizable condition. 

Or the elven body, Cullen thought sourly as he turned his attention to the naked and mottled figure that hung suspended from the ceiling on rough-hewn ropes in the center of the room. She was stretched just high enough to keep her heels from the ground, and a fresh bruise was beginning to shine on her forehead.

“She struggled, Knight-Captain,” Yarrow said, offering Cullen a whip, which he numbly accepted. Perversely, he would rather do it himself than just _watch_. “Did you know Derrick here gave the bitch a shirt and some medicine? Figured he should be here for this. It’ll cure his softness.”

“I didn’t—“ Derrick started, sounding almost as sick as Cullen felt.

“I know you didn’t.” Cullen did not look at the younger knight, and figured he could relieve him from the duty. Yarrow, too, especially because he had personally requested involvement. Cullen was too focused on Lavellan, her face contorted in pain as she hung, her arms splayed above her head as she struggled to maintain unfaltering eye contact with him, to think any more about which assignments to give his men.

“You don’t have to go through this, Lavellan,” he said to her, his eyes trained on her face. He did not look at the rest of her, feeling as if it would be voyeuristic and improper, though there was nothing sexual or arousing about her bareness.

“On the contrary, _Knight-Captain_ ,” she responded, trying to be steel and mettle as she hung helpless before him. “I think I do.”

“You don’t even like your people,” Cullen hissed. “Just tell us where your clan is. We won’t harm them if they just give us the mage, and you can go anywhere in Thedas you want when you’re done.”

She overflowed with almost poisonous cackles as everything within Cullen twisted and tightened. She was faking it again, Cullen knew, the barking laugh forced. “I will not fail my people.”

“There isn’t a man or woman alive that won’t crack under torture,” Yarrow said, and opened his mouth to speak again before being cut off by a withering glare from Cullen. “Sorry. See you’re talking to your lady.”

“Quiet, or I’ll have you up in her place. Do not think it is an empty threat.” He always pretended that his threats had intent behind them, and this time that intent may have been real. Cullen’s eyes jolted back to Lavellan. “He’s right, though. You will not be able to hold out indefinitely, and the longer you do, the worse this will be on you.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Lavellan, I…“ he trailed off, rubbing his eyes. She would not make this easy. It was contrary to her very nature, it seemed.

“What is it, Knight-Captain?” He almost wanted her to call him Cullen. “Tell me. Tell me before I die at the hands of the Templar Order.” She leaned forward on her toes, trying to step toward him, venom in her glare and grimness in her voice. “It will be an honor and a pleasure to fall before the biggest thing I have ever faced.”

An odd anger welled within Cullen. “What is this about? Why are you persisting in this utter stupidity? Do you want to end up a martyr? One of your elven corpses?” He closed the distance between them, gripping her jaw in his armored hand, her vulnerable form quivering mere inches beyond his plate armor as he tilted her face down to look in his eyes, the tip of his nose almost touching hers. He leaned in towards her, alongside her cheek and in a voice imperceptible to all but her, he begged, “Do not make me do this. Please.”

Lavellan responded to the earnest plea by wrenching her face away from Cullen’s grip and spitting on him. "I cannot make you do anything." Through her trembling, she shot a mean, hungry look towards Yarrow and Derrick, who both shrunk slightly under her withering gaze as if they were the ones strung up nude and she were armed and armored, equipped to deal unimaginable pain. “Your Order is a worthy adversary, and it’s as good of a last stand as any.” She hung her head, laughing shallowly. Of course Lavellan— a woman who had done no more with her life than chase game through the woods and broker petty trade agreements with villages— thought she was the equal of the Templar Order. Of course.

Cullen, wiping the spittle from his face poorly with the metal of his gauntlet, did not take his eyes from her and watched in rapt morbidity as her mirth dissolved into pathetic, racking sobs. He had done all he could to help her. Whip in hand, he slowly distanced himself from her and walked around to behind her followed by her wailing to begin the soul-sucking process of flogging her. At least he would not be able to see her face.

It was his duty, and he would perform it as such, and with his own hands. Cullen raised his arm, whip in hand, as he kept his eyes glued to Lavellan’s freckled shoulders.

“Knight-Captain Cullen!” A voice echoed down the hallway. One of the templars from Highstone, a petit redhead knight who looked awkward in her armor, stared nervously from the entrance to the room as she approached, averting her gaze from the bound elf. “A woman is here to see you. Says she’s the Champion of Kirkwall. Looks the part, too.”

“What? Hawke?” Cullen asked, slowly lowering his arm from above his head, the tension in his shoulders dispersing only slightly.

“She says she wants to see you immediately, Knight-Captain, ser. Says it’s important.”

Cullen glanced at Lavellan, and then at Derrick and Yarrow. “Watch her,” he commanded the two. “And neither of you touch her until I get back.”

The journey upstairs was a blur. Not wanting to greet a guest looking as haggard as he did, Cullen took a detour to his chambers so he could wash his face from the remnants of Lavellan’s spit in the basin. He fixed his hair the best he could, until the figure in the looking glass seemed almost presentable. He did not want to show himself to the Champion of Kirkwall in his current state, dark bags under his eyes and a sallowness permeating the whole of him. He noticed that he was no longer shaking, and he delayed meeting the Champion just long enough to take his injection of lyrium. Perhaps Hawke had found the apostate blood mage— but that was almost too much to ask for.

The cool air of the southern courtyard and the morning sun hit Cullen hard after even a short time in the dungeons, the light and briskness almost stinging astringents to his muddled and upset being, his still damp skin prickling from the Vimmark coldness.

The Champion stood just within the gate, bloodied and tired-looking with a large burlap bag slung over her shoulder. Her friend Anders was with her, a pole-arm that looked conspicuously like a mage’s staff tethered to his back. Cullen weakly considered arresting him right there, but abandoned the train of thought. He already had too much to deal with. “Good morning, Knight-Captain Cullen. Took you long enough,” Hawke greeted, sinking to her knee to gently let the bundle onto the ground. “We have your apostate.”

“Oh,” Cullen said, realizing what must be in the back. The templars in the yard crowding around to see the Champion, defeater of the Qunari threat, and a quick glance over his shoulder revealed that the men inside the castle peered down from the windows at the living legend that stood before them. Cullen could not remember the last time he had checked the phylactery— sometime the previous day, he thought, before he had visited Lavellan in her cell. “May I see the body?”

Hawke gingerly flipped back a layer of the burlap, revealing a half-burned but recognizable face. “That’s Lisle,” Cullen said numbly. He would not have to hurt Lavellan. Not anymore. At once, it was just on time and too late— he had made his choice. “Good work, Hawke. I will talk to Meredith about your payment.” 

“What’s wrong with you?” Hawke asked. “You seem more glum that usual. Is your—“ before whatever stupid jape Hawke had brewing was cut short by Anders.

“She wasn’t a blood mage,” Anders declared. “This was an innocent woman that _you people_ hunted, chased and tormented _wrongly_.”

Cullen’s nostril flared. “Innocent? Hardly! She murdered—“  
  
“No one!” Anders spat at him. “She murdered no one, and now she’s dead because of you and your Circle. This is all you and your ilk are good for, sewing the seeds of misery and death.”

“Anders is right,” Hawke corroborated, seemingly in attempt to call off the two men glaring daggers at one another. “The other mage that you thought was dead— Maeva— was the blood mage and the killer. Not only of your men, but of Lisle.”

“She’s out in the wilds here, then.” Cullen turned to the others in the yard. He felt as if everything that was happening was unreal. He tried to remember what Maeva looked like. “Find the search parties and give them new directives. Human woman, long dark hair.”

“She corrupted her phylactery with blood magic,” Hawke said. “You won’t be able to find her. The Dalish clan out here has chased her to the north— they will have her head if they find her.” She knelt to cover Lisle’s face again, and looked up at Cullen with an uncomfortable softness flooding her voice. “Make certain that she has a proper burial, Knight-Captain.” Standing, Hawke turned to Anders. “Would you like to go?”

“We couldn’t leave soon enough,” Anders said, shooting one last venomous glance at the templars before they turned to walk back through the hold’s open portcullis with no ceremony or pomp.

It was over, Cullen thought, exhaling as he watched the backs of the two recede down the slope.

“So that was the Champion of Kirkwall?” a voice came. "She's prettier that I thought she'd be."

Another asked, “Why is she leaving so soon?” 

“Who’s that man with her?”

“Maybe he’s one of her infamous apostate friends. We can’t touch him, can we?”

“I can’t believe Hawke found the mage…”

Cullen turned to the templars standing idly in the courtyard. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Someone cremate this body— we’ll take the ashes back to Kirkwall and have one of the Tranquils find the family in Orlais so we can send the remains back to them.” His head was spinning, and for a long moment he stood there, realizing how close he had come to crossing some line he had drawn within himself.

Still numb, he slowly made his way back into the castle. Eyeing the dungeon door, he turned to go down it. He wanted to laugh in sick defeat, but could not as he descended again into the depths, looking at his feet as he traveled down into the castle’s depths.

That’s when Cullen noticed the fresh blood on the stonework and immediately concluded that something had likely gone terribly wrong in the short interval where he had spoken to Hawke.

He found about what he expected in the torture chamber. Both Lavellan and one of the implements of torture that lined the walls were missing. One of the ropes that bound her was severed, and the other hung limp but unscathed from its loop in the ceiling— it seemed that whoever had strung Lavellan up had not tied her tight enough.

Of course they had fouled up the procedure. 

Glancing around the room, Cullen saw her two guardians lying on the floor, Yarrow sprawled backwards with his throat slit, and Derrick slumped against the wall right in front of the entrance to the hallway.

Cullen approached the younger templar to see that he was still breathing— Lavellan must have knocked him unconscious. He supposed that even starving and injured, the danger to her life had borne her a sort of desperate strength, more than enough to dispatch the untrained teenager that stood between her and freedom. It was not the first time he had heard of someone so battered fighting with such efficacious savagery.

He surveyed the room again, trying to put together what had happened. Lavellan had gotten a hand loose because of the faulty rigging, he saw, and seemingly swung to the wall to grab a slicing instrument of some sort. She had cut her other hand down with it either before or after slicing Yarrow’s throat, which seemed to be the source of the blood. It looked as if Derrick had retreated a few steps to the door before falling to her as well. Neither of the men had drawn their swords.

Cullen followed the trail of blood out of the bay, and saw from a small pool that she had laid down her knife at a table near her old cell to reclaim her smallclothes and Cullen’s shirt. He followed the more and more sporadic droplets up the stairs, wondering if she was still in the keep. The hope was immediately dashed when he saw that she had entered into the long, straight hallway that ran along the north wall of the castle. He was entirely unsurprised when the very last visible droplet was at the mouth of the giant hole in the northern wall that let off onto the treed slope of the mountain that the fortress sat upon. There was maybe a ten foot drop to the ground from the particular opening, and he suspected that Lavellan could have broken an ankle or some other bone in the fall, but she was nowhere to be seen— she had either completely fled in a short time or hidden herself from his line of sight. Cullen did not have to question why no one had witnessed her running through the hallway that ran along the north wall of the building. The whole of Highstone had crowded to the south wall to catch a glimpse of the famous Marian Hawke in the courtyard.

Real, honest, laughter, though his mirth did not spring purely from joy, came to Cullen as he stared out over the expanse before him.

“Knight-Captain!” the newly conscious Ser Derrick said, running up behind Cullen as he shook his head, chuckling at the absurdity of the situation— her escape had hinged on not just incredible luck but on the sheer, ridiculous incompetence of others. “The prisoner, she escaped!”

“Do you think, Ser Derrick?” Cullen tried very hard to banish the odd smirk that had floated onto his face, but probably failed. Overjoyed and exhausted at once, he cared too little to really tell.

“Should… Should we get search parties out?”

“No,” Cullen answered, grinning, “that won’t be necessary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe i should write an entire fanfic about Cullen and Anders being really pissy with each other bc tbh that would be great
> 
> tune in next time to figure out just how awkward i am at writing about sex.


	11. Facilitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen tracks down Lavellan, but not because he is bound to the task by duty.
> 
> Sexual content.

Cullen spent most of the day doing paperwork and ensuring the proper treatment of Lisle’s remains. Despite the morbid work, he awoke the next morning in a rather fantastic mood, feeling blessed by Andraste and her all-powerful love. He walked down a ridge through the woods alone the next day, doing what he considered to be the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life.

He pushed aside a curtain of rashvine and other lush tendrils, and peered into a cave nestled between two gorges. “Lavellan?” he called into the darkness.

“Mother of _fuck_!” the elf swore, struggling to her feet in the shadows, a glint in the dark indicating that she brandished the serrated knife she had stolen from the dungeons. “How did you know I was here?”

“I’m unarmed,” Cullen said, holding his hands up, “and unaccompanied. I promise. The situation with the mage resolved itself. I’m not quite sure what happened, myself, only that she’s dead and that the Templar Order no longer has any interest in Clan Lavellan.”

Raising her eyebrows at Cullen’s summary of events, she limped towards the mouth of the cave, the knife still pointed at him. She peered out into the forest, checking for other templars following him. “Well, I don’t see anyone. How did you know I was here?” she repeated.

Cullen surveyed the cave and noticed that several pits of stone fruits littered the floor of the cavern along with a torn of his shirt piled with what looked like a paste made of ground elfroot— she seemed to have made herself simple poultices. Her lip was healed, at least, which probably had eased the process of eating ravenously. “We found this place when we were originally searching the area. I figured that you would be hurt after the jump, and you’d either lay low here or in an abandoned cabin a little to the east until your injuries healed.” He indicated to her foot, bound with the elfroot in one of the sleeves.

She shrugged slightly as she weighed his words, and Cullen thought he saw an impressed look flit across her face. “What if I wasn’t in either?” Lavellan asked, oddly earnest.

“Then I would sit in one of them and drink alone, I suppose,” he answered.

“You’ve got alcohol?”

Cullen motioned towards the back of the cave. “May I come in?”

“Well, I can’t promise that I won’t stab you,” Lavellan answered, frowning, “but sure, if you want. _Andaran atish’an_ , I guess.”

“I suppose that’s good enough,” Cullen said, swinging the knapsack from his back as he walked past her into the opening. The cave did not go too far back, and the air inside was warmer than the forest. Cullen wondered if there was any sort of thermal vein beneath the rocks. “How is your ankle?”

Lavellan didn’t answer him. “What are you doing here, Knight-Captain? Alone, unarmed, unarmored. And you shaved your face.” It was an odd observation, but she wasn’t wrong. Cullen had indeed shaved. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Well, I…” Cullen had what he wanted to say formulated in his head, but it dissipated and vanished under her intense gaze. “I mean, I was… just thinking. You said you liked me, and, I wanted to…”

“Wanted to what?” Lavellan leaned back against the wall of the cavern, taking the weight off of her wrapped ankle. She crossed her arms once she settled into a resting position.

“You know.”

“I don’t.”

“You, uhm, well, you…you _kissed_ me,” Cullen stuttered. The previous day, he had realized, as he filed, sorted, and debriefed, that he still wanted Lavellan, and that it would not be wrong to pursue a free woman, as long as she came to him willingly. A part of him sought something else, signs of forgiveness, proof that he had left her unscarred unlike many of the others that had passed through his care. As always, he had chosen his duty over whatever was left of his morality, and thought that perhaps she could give him a sort of absolution. “And I thought that, uhm, well, if you would _have_ me—”

Her jaw dropped, and she shook her head in utter disbelief. “You know I was just trying to get you to open the cell door, right? And you would have had me flogged and who knows what else if I hadn’t escaped! Do you _really_ think I want to sleep with you right now?” So she _did_ know what he was talking about.

“I figured that was the case. I had hoped…ugh.” he grimaced, realizing how stupid he sounded. Irritability welled in his voice. “Maybe I should go.” Of course it wasn’t going to work out. He wondered if chasing an elf through the forest to proposition her for sex and slinking away in defeat was more or less embarrassing than the months he spent locked in the chantry in Greenfell screaming his lungs out. Probably less. He turned towards the mouth of the cave again, but swiveled back to face her before adding the sojourn to his growing list of happenings that he was not very proud of. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. For what I might have had to do. For what I had resolved to do. Especially… especially because, uh, what I said about liking you… I meant it.”

She blinked, and shook her head again with a chuckle. “Really?” she asked, looking down at the floor. “What do you like about me?” When she looked back up, she was grinning at him, and it was a welcome sight.

He was caught off guard by the question. “Uhm, well,” Cullen stumbled, “you’re smart, and, uhm… charming, I suppose. And you seem like you feel like you can do anything, and you make that seem so _easy_. And it’s just…” he looked away from her as he rambled, not wanting to make eye contact despite his sincerity. “I’m not very good at this,” he finally admitted, working up the resolve to look her in the eyes, the light streaming through the covers of vegetation illuminating her freckled, tattooed face.

Lavellan laughed. “I can tell.” She bit her bottom lip for a moment, thinking, before standing upright and walking gingerly toward him, favoring her injured ankle as she shook her head. “If you weren’t so _gorgeous_ , if you weren’t so…” she swallowed a word that seemed to carry more weight than the previous one, and she leaned up to kiss him on the lips, lingering just long enough to drive the point home: she wanted him, despite any and all better judgment. She withdrew before he could engage her in earnest, but she stayed tantalizingly close. “You said you had liquor?”

“Wine,” Cullen said almost too quickly, dipping into the bag on the ground to snatch the single bottle he had managed to locate and commandeer from within Highstone Hold.

“Romantic. I don’t suppose you have silken sheets and candles in that pack, too? For the full ‘I’m making a terrible decision and having sex with a human man who held me captive for three days’ experience?”

Cullen ignored the jab as he laid the wine aside and continued to unpack the bag in a great hurry. Perhaps he had brought too many things. He wondered if he looked foolish before her, but decided not to follow that train of thought— he had already left her twice in two separate blind panics. “What if I do?”

“Then I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I actually do have wool blankets and an oil lamp. Also, uhm, I…brought your armor.” Cullen had heard of the properties of ironbark, but was still impressed by the lightness of the armor the Order had confiscated from the elf— it compacted into the bag very easily and had added no weight to his burden.

“You really _are_ prepared.” Lavellan smiled as Cullen began unpacking the bag almost frantically. He’d put a lot of thought into the scenario in the morning before he had left, but now he would be willing to forego it all and take her on the earthen floor, if possible. With the lamp lit and out of the way, he unfurled the blankets on the cave floor. “You’re not upset about the templar I killed?”

“The Knight-Lieutenant?” Cullen looked up at her as she frowned down at him intently. “Not at all.” He felt more than slightly callous, but he’d seen many better men and women than Yarrow fall to enemies— the Knight-Lieutenant had gone quickly and almost painlessly at the hands of someone fighting for her life and freedom. He had grown used to casualties over his years in Kirkwall, and would save his mourning for the brave and the righteous.

“Just making sure.”

A silence fell between the two.

“So, uhm… have you ever been with a human man?” Cullen asked as he straightened the thick layers of rough-spun woolen blankets.

“There isn’t any difference in _size_ , Knight-Captain,” Lavellan replied, implying a resounding ‘yes,’ and when he looked up at her again, he was stopped from articulating his intended response of ‘that’s not what I was asking’ when he noticed that she had very quickly stripped herself almost entirely naked aside from the bandages on her ankle. The bruising on her ribs was gone, probably thanks to the plant that bore the name of her people, but he did not dwell on the miracles of elfroot for long as he surveyed her body, attempting to unlace and slip off his boots without looking down at them.

Though he imagined Lavellan herself might laugh at the charge, Cullen thought she must be the most beautiful woman in the world framed by the natural light that spilled in from the outside, the curves of her unfettered body free and unmarked aside from her almost divine freckles and the silvery scars of battles past. He walked to her and gently stroked a marred stretch of skin along her ribcage. “I’ll tell you how I got that later,” she breathed as he angled her tattooed face upwards.

Cullen kissed Lavellan, and unclouded by the shadows of guilt and shame, it was as sweet as he imagined kissing could ever be. Her lips locked with his, she collapsed into him, her naked form warm through his clothing as she entwined herself with him.

Before long, the two had found their way onto the blanket, trapped in a horizontal tangle of fabric as he helped her strip himself of his shirt and pants, managing to somehow impede the removal of the latter garment in his somewhat clumsy haste.

“It’s been a while since I… err…” Cullen muttered into her short hair, finally kicking free of his trousers as she slipped his smalls off with one hand, trailing their retreat with the others along his backside as his erect cock nestled between the two of them, so close and so far from her core at once.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she laughed in the small opening between a rain of kisses that was both fluttering and intent. He found that she was already wet when his fingers slipped to the area between her legs and drawing a gasp from her mouth, her sweet, quiet noises of pleasure everything he hoped they could have been.

“Is there a position that won’t put weight on your ankle?” He pressed his lips to the tip of her crooked nose.

In response, Lavellan rolled Cullen so he was atop her, her back flat against the blanket and him between her legs. Face to face, they closed the distance between their lips again and he slid inside of her almost hurriedly, though there was no rush between the two of them. There was nothing at all between the two of them, no Order, no resolve, no metal bars. As they fucked on an itchy blanket on the floor of a cave, it was as if the world outside did not exist. Filthy, hellish Kirkwall could crumble into dust upon the Waking Sea and the Order could dissolve for all Cullen cared right then— the moment belonged to him, one of sheer irresponsibility and unabashed, unashamed selfishness.

Perhaps it was not wholly selfish. Lavellan seemed to be radiantly happy as she cried out beneath him, nipping at his neck and tracing the scars that lined his sides with joyously shaking hands as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in closer. She was tight and hot and returned his motions, moving against him the best she could with her limited bracing against the ground. Cullen had not had many lovers in his twenty-four years, but Lavellan was still distinct, her callouses and freckles and tattoos and perfect grin starkly her own and no other’s. She was wild and strange and utterly foreign, yet he fit with her so perfectly that for a single moment he thought that the Maker must have crafted her specifically for him. And she had wanted him, and desperately so, if the fervor with which she knotted her fingers in the curls of his blonde hair or swallowed his moans with open, panting kisses was any indication.

“Cullen,” Lavellan called, mouthing his name in ecstasy as her eyes rolled back and her insides fluttered around him, her finish sending him over his own edge inside of her. They were still for a moment, a sweating, sprawling mess in an inopportune location at an inopportune time, and he finally withdrew from her and rolled off of her. Cullen returned what now seemed like a gesture of intimacy, leaving a gentle kiss on her cheekbone and muttering her given name into one of her pointed ears: “Adahlen.”

It did not take the two long to uncork the wine. They wrapped themselves in the blanket and leaned against the wall of the cave, watching the light of the oil lamp flicker and illuminate the whole of their tiny world.

Lavellan spoke first, nestling against his shoulder after taking a long swig of the wine. “ _Ir abelas_ , Cullen. I'm sorry.”

Cullen was at a loss. “ _You’re_ sorry?”

“You’re a good person.” she said. She licked her lips of the alcohol, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I…I took advantage of that. As soon as I saw that you didn’t want to hurt me, that you were struggling against some sort of moral compass, I just… I tried to turn it against you to my benefit,” Lavellan exhaled slowly. “And after you set my shoulder, I could tell that you wanted me, and I…I knew you were having problems with your power over me.” She paused again, struggling to get the words out. “I couldn’t stop crying when I first woke up. And then those men beat the shit out of me, and I just felt so weak, like I wasn’t able to do anything about it.” She paused, and wiped the corner of her eye as if a tear had welled in it. “I really thought I was going to die. I figured… I figured I could at least go down fighting, in whatever way that I could. It’s better than being helpless, you know?”

He was silent for a moment. If what she was saying was true, she had caused him considerable grief, and deliberately, but she had been trying to _survive_ , and her struggle against him had no chance of collateral damage outside of the two of them. Lavellan had been fighting tooth and nail to escape, and he could not begrudge her for that, especially not as he basked in a sort of post-coital joy. He was, in fact, somewhat impressed that she had attempted to turn her weakness into a playable strength— he could not help but think that she had made a rather impressive tactical call. He attempted to comfort her by expounding upon his own guilt over the situation. “I chose my duty over my resolve to not hurt you.” He took a moment to trace the tattoos that graced her cheek with his thumb.

“You’d known me for the whole of three days. Even if you wanted to fuck me—“

Cullen shook his head. “I’ve chosen duty over innocents before.”

“Cullen, I impeded your search for a _blood mage_ and tried to kill you and your men. I _did_ kill someone, as much of a bastard as he was. I’m hardly an innocent. I’m not saying what you did wasn’t wrong, but it was…understandable.”

Cullen wanted to tell Lavellan that he had hurt many innocent mages, sentenced them to horrible punishment for specters of crimes that could have been. He wanted to tell her that, while guilty of apostasy, Lisle had not been a blood mage, and that Lavellan had stood against him to protect a relatively innocent woman, but he realized that it was irrelevant. “Stop. We are excusing each other’s bad behavior,” he said.

Lavellan took another drink of the wine, and pressed her likely stained mouth into his shoulder. “Perhaps we are.” She paused, and added, “I will admit that what you were going to do to me was worse than the game I was playing at.”

He gave her another berth of silence, and said, “Many people in Kirkwall haven’t been as lucky as you were.” Part of him thought she would push him off of her at some point, disgusted at the blood that the pen he’d signed monstrous orders with had left on his hands. Many of the harsh measures he had been forced to take had been justified, but he was well aware that many had not been.

“I take it that you don’t like it much there.” 

“No,” Cullen admitted. “I do not. I… I’ve become quite dissatisfied with the protocol for treating the mages, but I cannot take action against it.”

“Isn’t Knight-Captain a high office?” Lavellan asked. “You surely must have some power.”

“Not enough to actually _change_ anything.” Cullen grabbed the wine from her, and upended the still heavy bottle into his mouth. He needed the buzz. “I…I think I’m going to try, but I’m not sure that I could be effective.”

“Perhaps you should find a new job.”

Cullen laughed. “If only it were that easy, Adahlen.” He paused again, and phrased his next inquiry with an odd trepidation. “I told you what I liked about you. Presuming… presuming you weren’t lying when you said that you felt the same way of me…”

“What I like about you? Well, I’ve already told you that you were _good_ , right?” Lavellan said. “You’re more good than I could ever imagine. And you don’t play games— you’re so straightforward, Cullen. Steadfast.” She stopped for a moment, and reached up to touch his face, running her index finger along the scar she had inflicted upon his upper lip and looking up at him with her dark eyes. “I… I wouldn’t have done this with you if I didn’t think you were an honest person.”

She kissed him, long and deep, and he abandoned the bottle of wine as she swung herself into his lap. Lavellan pressed her forehead to his, and her round breasts compressed against his chest as she drew herself to him. It was not long before his cock was hard again, and she sheathed herself upon it as he held her, gently moving atop him as he almost lovingly supported her. His hands roamed her back as she braced herself on his shoulders, both of their fingers brushing the silvery lines of scars.

He finished within her a second time, their lips locked together. Underneath the blanket, the two collapsed to the ground.

“I wish I could stay here with you,” Cullen was entirely earnest in the sentiment as he lay wrapped with her on the floor of the cave. He pulled her flush against him, as if he could make his desire a reality by holding her tight enough. “But I must return eventually— my men are likely already wondering where I am.” 

She nipped and sucked at his neck as he held her. “I have to find my clan, too,” Lavellan said, the reverberations of her voice lightly vibrating against Cullen’s skin. “They’re likely in a glen atop one of the mountains out here— I’m hoping I’m in time to catch them, once my ankle heals.”

It felt so right to Cullen, holding Lavellan there. She seemed comfortable and content sprawled in his arms as she nestled against him, her physicality so different from her cagey, defensive motions within the jail cell. “Come with me back to Kirkwall,” he entreated.

She laughed, but not cruelly. “Come with you back to Kirkwall? And what, live in one of your alienages?”

“Marry me,” he said, almost swallowing his own proposal. Cullen immediately regretted the suggestion, not only for its pathetic and desperate foolishness but for its infeasibility. Even if the woman agreed to leave her entire life for a man she had known not even for a week, it was unlikely that the Chantry would allow him to marry an elf, assuming that she even wanted to live with him in the city. Cullen felt like a foolish child, and imagined that she would see him in the same light. The world and its bitter realities began to return to Cullen— he was not looking forward to returning to Kirkwall.

Lavellan did not laugh again, or balk at the suggestion. Instead, she extended her own offer. “Run away with me, Cullen,” she said, touching the tip of her crooked nose to his. “No more Dalish, no more Templar Order. We could be free, apart from everything. We could live as sell-swords in the Anderfels or Antiva, or we could be heroes, if we wanted. Maybe fight some bandits, or slavers, or a dragon, or at least a very mean drake.”

Her plan had appeal in its romance, and Cullen declined it before he could begin to on its many impossibilities. “I could not.” Cullen shook his head, shedding all seeds of the fantasies Lavellan had attempted to plant in his mind of being some wandering champion of goodness. “I must return. Without me, Kirkwall would—”

“I understand, Cullen.” Lavellan said with a tacit sadness. It was lucky that she cut him off. He did not know how he would finish the sentence. Cullen knew that the city-state would continue along its current path with or without him as a leader, and the thought left him bitter. “You’ll do something great,” she assured him as if she was reading his mind, “and so shall I. I’ll find something bigger than your Order and face it down, just you watch.”

There it was again, the endearing grandiosity. He wondered if she believed it, or if she knew that her promises were likely hollow. Still, Cullen chuckled. “I would think so. We’ll meet again someday, won’t we, Lavellan?” He claimed the elf’s lips for himself once more, lingering near her when they parted.

“Of course,” Lavellan agreed, and Cullen knew in his heart of hearts that her words were untrue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand other than the epilogue (which i actually don't have written yet), that's it.
> 
> this is also the first time i have ever written about sex, even if it was fairly non-explicit. i hope it wasn't too too bad! thanks for reading!!!!


	12. Epilogue - 9:41 Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the last place they expect it, Cullen and Lavellan reunite.

The world was falling apart before Cullen. Templars and mages put each other and innocent smallfolk to the blade across Thedas, the sky had torn itself into ominous green shreds unfathomably before his own eyes, and if all was to be believed, the Divine was not only dead but had been utterly obliterated in an otherworldly explosion that not even magic could account for. It would be comforting to think that the only chance the world had at peace had gone up in smoke. Smoke was at least born of fire, an understandable force, and it almost verged on tangibility. What had happened at the Conclave was anything but understandable and tangible.

“ _Despair is useless, Knight-Captain_ ,” he’d once been told, and though ‘Knight-Captain’ was no longer his title, he desperately reminded himself of those words.

In the utter chaos of the explosion, Cullen could take refuge in action. Standing on a snow-covered hill somewhere outside of the town of Haven, he commanded—he was still adjusting to being saddled with the title of ‘Commander’— the paltry forces of his fledgling Inquisition, made mostly up of templar defectors and faithful militiamen, to survey and mitigate the damage the explosion that shook the mountainside had caused. His ability to help the lost, the injured, and the disoriented kept him grounded. As long as he could _do something_ , he could stave off the panic that everything within him so yearningly wanted to succumb to.

“Commander, ser.” An Inquisition woman who had been a bannerman of a Fereldan lord before joining his forces approached Cullen. Ser Maucey was several years his senior and kept a small guard of men with her as many important knights did, but spoke to him with a steadfast deference. She did not yet have a rank in the Inquisition, but still was the undisputed leader of the troops she had brought with her into its fold. The two stared out over a ruined mountain valley that had been strewn with chunks of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, “I’ve an update on the perimeter work. Pilgrims, mages, and templars alike are still trying to enter the area, they’re mostly confused— we’ll keep them away from the rubble." 

Cullen wondered why anyone would approach the Breach in the sky, but he remained stoic as his internal panic mounted. “Good job, soldier,” he said, still adjusting to his role outside the Order, which had fallen to chaos and mindless violence at the same time that the Circles did. “The more people we can keep away from the mess, the better. If you can spare the troops, divert some to dealing with the rubble. There may be people trapped.”

“Maker,” the woman said, “I’m glad that Sister Leliana couldn’t find Warden Surana,” Cullen’s chest tightened slightly less at the name than it would have a few years ago, “or Champion Hawke, and that she or Seeker Pentaghast weren’t at the day’s talks. I can’t imagine that anyone survived that.”

“Dismissed, soldier,” Cullen said. “Keep the perimeter secured and try to still the panic if you can.”

“Right, Commander,” the woman answered, hurrying off with the small guard of men that had waited with her. 

As Cullen watched his forces scramble into the valley below him, a nervousness that he would not allow to rule him welled in his stomach. There was much Cullen regretted— not standing against Meredith before she went too far, not asking Hawke to stay in Kirkwall before she could flee, not arresting Hawke’s infuriatingly snide blonde mage friend before he blew up the Chantry— but joining the Inquisition was not one of the things he begrudged himself for. The only people he could see busying themselves in the bedlam of the explosion at the Conclave were the ones under the Inquisition banner. He was with a force of good now, and he had at least that to comfort him. And Cullen could say that he had his own feathered pauldrons now. That was a much more meager upside.

“Knight-Captain…I mean, Commander, ser.” Ser Derrick approached him. Though he filled out his Inquisition uniform more comfortably than he ever seemed in his templar armor, the knight still looked somewhat awkward as trudged through the snow.

“Lieutenant,” Cullen addressed him. Greeting Derrick was odd for him. The man, who apparently had defected from the embattled Templar Order and flocked to the Inquisiton’s banners as soon as the news of its reestablishment had reached him, unavoidably reminded Cullen of the time he had spent at Highstone Hold, an admittedly absurd stretch of time in which he had driven himself to the edge of his sanity panicking over his treatment of an elven prisoner before chasing after her to proposition her for sex and, embarrassingly, propose marriage. It was an almost surreal time period.

The aftermath was also somewhat bizarre, from what he had heard—after Cullen had filed reports about the leadership at the keep, the Seekers had investigated Highstone and implicated Knight-Captain Jennah and the deceased Yarrow in an inhuman amount of embezzlement from the Order. The Seekers, Meredith, and the Knights-Vigilant had immediately fired Jennah, installed a fastidious Orlesian taskmaster to the role of Knight-Captain, and promoted honest, enthusiastic Derrick to Knight-Lieutenant.

Moreover, two months after Cullen had left, a missive had been sent from the outpost to the Gallows claiming that the hacked and mangled body of a woman matching Maeva’s description had turned up at the portcullis of Highstone Hold. Supposedly, the Dalish had made good on their promise to the now-missing Marian Hawke, as the discovery of charcoal writing declaring “HERE IS YOUR BLOOD MAGE, SHEMLEN” scrawled on the outer wall of the castle had accompanied the discovery of the corpse.

Cullen only tacitly recognized these happenings, as the whole of Kirkwall had been in the process of falling to chaos around him. Over the turbulent years, however, Cullen found himself thinking, from time to time, about Lavellan. He missed what he could remember of the tattooed woman, her grin and laugh burnt into his memory. He sometimes wondered if he had fallen in love with her, albeit briefly. It was likely that all his emotions had been heightened by the stress of the situation, but he could not deny that he had been devastatingly intrigued with the whole of Lavellan’s being.

In addition to haunting the margins of his thoughts and more than a few of his dreams, Lavellan had also left an inordinate amount of marks, which lingered for over a week, on the visible stretch of his neck for all his men to see. Cullen had to assume from what he knew of her personality that she had done it it on purpose— fortunately for him, many of the men assumed that he had engaged in an affair with one of the women in the nearby village in his absence. It had been near six years since he had seen the woman, but Cullen thought of her often: his repeated betrayals of his conscience in the name of duty became more and more starkly highlighted after his experience in the Vimmarks.

 _“Perhaps you should find a new job,”_ Lavellan had said to him half-sardonically as she lay in his arms, and the words had echoed in his mind when he accepted Cassandra’s offer to lead the armies of the Inquisition. He resolved to not sacrifice morality in his current post. His new resolve to forego lyrium injections stemmed from this decision: if all went well, no addiction would tie him to an amoral Order any longer. If it did not go well, he would die, but he did not have time to worry about such trivial things when the very sky itself was falling apart before him.

“Commander, ser,” Derrick said, “I’ve gotten together the men you requested. What now, ser?” 

“Good,” Cullen replied, “take them to the ravine and begin moving the rubble. Some of Maucey’s men might meet you there, but do not wait for them to arrive to begin. I’ve heard reports of people trapped in the mess. Get as many as you can out, quickly. And watch for demons— the whole mountainside’s swarming with them.”

Derrick swallowed. He’d never been given the transfer to the Gallows that he had requested, and thus had the great luck of never having fought a demon before. He was clearly nervous, but nodded at the command. “Understood, Knight Capta— Commander. We’ll be careful.” He rushed away hurriedly without being dismissed. 

Cullen wondered if he should enter the fray himself. Apparently, the entire valley, which was overwrought with panicked traffic comprised of those who were unfortunate enough to have experienced the explosion and fortunate enough not to be obliterated in its blast, was flooded with demons and in utter disarray. Cullen realized that his ground leadership could benefit the evacuation, giving him both a better sense of the situation and boost his men’s morale. Yet he’d not taken lyrium in months and he felt almost light-headed— he wondered if he would be competent on the field.

“Cullen.” It was Leliana’s voice. Sister Nightingale stood staunch when he turned to face her, her hands folded at her waist as she approached. Cullen had been working closely with Leliana for some time, but he still could not make sense of the Left Hand of the Divine. He knew she was the spymaster of the Chantry, the close friend of the Hero of Fereldan, a confidant of the Divine, and a person of strong faith, but she remained somewhat of an enigma. Leliana was alternatingly a giggling lady senselessly obsessed with footwear—more often than not in Josephine Montilyet’s presence, Maker bless the Antivan— and a woman forged of murderous, cunning steel that shone with a sharp brilliance. There was precious little middle ground.

“Leliana,” he said. “You’ve found the source of the explosion?” She had promised to let him know what had caused the Conclave to explode if she discovered it, but Cullen had not expected the spymaster to come in person. 

“Yes.” Leliana stared into the distance, out over the snow-covered pines and into the valley where Inquisition forces hurried themselves to save what lives they could. She seemed distant and deeply upset. “And perhaps the whole of the Breach. We’ve taken an elf from the epicenter of the wreckage.”

A bitterness tinged Cullen’s voice. “A mage did this.” Just like the Kirkwall Chantry. He had suspected as much.

“We do not think so,” Leliana answered. “The elf has yet to wake, but an apostate who has offered his help to Cassandra claims that she does not have magic of her own. I do not know much of her, but from her tattoos, she is a Dalish woman. Aside from the fact that she was likely not supposed to be at the Conclave, it is all we know of her— I hope to gather more information in the coming days.”

“Dalish.” Cullen’s gloved hand floated to the small scar above his lip. The thoughts unbidden, he mused, “Once I held a Dalish elf prisoner once for obstructing an investigation.”

Leliana quirked a manicured brow, and her voice was as cold as the ice beneath her feet. “Oh, Commander? I have little experience with the Dalish, and I would appreciate any advice you might have on extracting information.” Cullen did not need to ask about how far she might go to do so.

The Commander shook his head. “I could hardly be of help,” he said. “She gave me nothing useable, and escaped by exploiting faults in the architecture. The issue was resolved before she warranted re-capture.”

Leliana let out a small ‘hm,’ and was silent for a moment behind the shroud of her dark cowl. “I doubt this woman will be so fortunate.”

Footfalls could be heard in the snow behind them, and they both turned to behold a hooded courier. “Seeker Pentaghast says that the prisoner has begun to stir, ma’am,” he said, bowing his head to Leliana.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the mountain air. Cullen was not particularly good at reading people, and Leliana’s aspect seemed impenetrable at times, but he could tell that what had happened was deeply troubling her. “Right. I will return with you. Take care, Commander. It is crucial that we handle this situation well.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Cullen almost grumbled as Leliana followed the messenger.

Less than an hour later, Cullen found himself leading from the front and rushing into the valley with almost all the Inquisition forces that had remained in reserve. Demons had continued to stream from the many glowing rifts that had opened, threatening the rescue efforts in the valley— Cullen could not afford to hold back personnel if he intended to spare the evacuees.

On his way down, Leliana’s messengers sprinted back and forth to him, giving him updates on the situation: false alarm, the prisoner is still unconscious, it’s been confirmed that Grand Cleric So-and-So was not actually in the Temple of Sacred Ashes and is alive, there’s reportedly fucking rifts everywhere and we don’t know how to fix them but we should probably talk about perimeter guards upon your return to base, all right, the prisoner is awake and she seems too confused and addled to talk, well now she’s talking but is swearing that she had nothing to do with the explosion and Leliana and Cassandra think that she might be sincere, etcetera.

As reports rolled in during the rebuking of occasional demon attacks and the directing of lost and confused people, it was confirmed by the messengers that the prisoner had a connection to the giant Breach in the sky, and despite her probable culpability, it was likely that she could undo the monstrous tear in the fabric of the Veil. As he came closer to the source of conflict, updates grew slower and eventually stopped all together as the danger mounted.

Cullen’s arrival at the epicenter of the battle raging in the valley vindicated his decision to personally take charge. The men already on the field seemed tired and scattered when his reinforcements arrived, and he stepped over many bodies of Inquisition foot soldiers as he neared the source of many of the demons. Derrick let out a cheer when he saw Cullen’s party engage with the monsters, an echo of his glee rising quickly amongst the other men and just as rapidly drowning amongst the demonic shrieks carried by the howling wind.

At his side, his men clashed with the shades and wisps as a harsh flurry blew through the funnel of the valley, obscuring his vision and stinging his cheeks. He hacked downwards through the darkly ethereal material that made up one of the demons and it dissolved into foul-smelling green smoke before he bashed another with his shield so one of his men could impale it as it reeled backwards. Cullen did not feel _bad_ , necessarily— perhaps fighting without the aid of lyrium would be manageable, though he was starkly aware of the fact that the cleansing abilities the mineral had afforded him for so many years would be devastatingly useful against the enemies he now faced.

Trying not to dwell on his choice of abstinence, Cullen continued to take his blade to the monsters. His reinforcements allowed the last of the demons to be vanquished, but no sooner did the air clear of their gossamer debris than did the rift spill out more of the creatures, fresh, maddened, and ready to engage the Inquisition troops.

Cullen turned to Derrick, who stood panting beside him, exhausted from having exercised his own templar powers on the otherworldly enemies. His combat skills had come a long way in the seven years since Cullen’s visit to Highstone, where he had been bested by a naked and starving woman, but he seemed tired, as did many of his men. A few of the greener troops that had arrived with Cullen already seemed worn— the situation did not bode well against the seemingly endless font of demons. “Lieutenant, what’s the status of the evacuation?” He tried to look past the rift, but the snow and several ruined walls blocked his line of vision as the first line of troops clashed with the volley of demons. 

“We’ve gotten a handful out, Commander,” Derrick breathed, “but the rift here’s been a bottleneck. We can’t get more than a handful of soldiers past it, and there’s no visibility beyond the wall. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, since I think they've been too tired to keep it up since you got here, but there’s a group of apostate mages up there on top of that ridge— they’ve been throwing energy beams to help us, but they’re stuck on the other side of the tear.”

“Understood,” Cullen said. He paused and pursed his lips, which already felt chapped in the whipping winds. A woman’s cry rang forth as a demon tore at one of the foot soldiers with its nightmarish claws. It pained Cullen to say the next sentence: “It’s likely that we will be unable to get past this point— once we have another opening, I may have to call a retreat.” As necessary as it was to screen the area for survivors, he could not see a way to advance, especially not if the rift continued spraying out demons. He did not want to lose the trapped civilians, or the helpful apostates Derrick had mentioned, but at the current rate, the tear would kill both them and the Inquisition forces. He wondered if he could have archers or scouts double back and scale the walls to continue the search, but realized that evacuation in any great numbers relied on the opening of the passage. He mentally cursed as he ran forward again to trade blows with the monsters.

New sparks of green spit from the rift as the Inquisition soldiers continued to struggle with the demons. “Fall back, men!” Cullen yelled. “Before more spawn!” The line of foot soldiers broke as they turned to run, the fade creatures clawing at their backs. A handful of the slower recruits, however, and others that had ended up on the opposite side of the rift in the frey, were cut off as the malevolently floating wisps swung around front of them and flanked them at once as shades closed in from seemingly every direction.

Shooting a last glance at Derrick, Cullen let out a frustrated sigh and demanded, “Make sure no one else falls behind. I will cover the retreat with the men here.”

“No disrespect, ser, but you’re the Commander, and—“

“And I’ve fought enough demons in Kirkwall to know what I’m doing,” he finished. He probably could not save them all, but he could open a path for those who would take their own initiative. He did not think of his own potential fate. “I’ve given you a blighted _order_ , Lieutenant.”

“Yes ser,” Derrick said before calling to the running soldiers, “You heard the Commander, soldiers! Fall back!” 

Cullen dove forward, vanquishing several of the malevolent spirits with a single slash of his blade. Their type split like tissue, and did not slow the arc of his weapon as he cleared the way for the trapped soldiers. He lunged forward to impale a shade, and it fizzled away. “Run!” he demanded to three soldiers who had been waylaid by the group he had dispersed, and he motioned with his hands at another green-looking Inquisition gaggle that he had given an opportunity to make a break for safety.

The moment ended after only two had slipped through the opening, and demons again swarmed the remaining troops, closing the passageway. A shade swiped downwards at Cullen, and he threw up his shield in defense, only barely managing to toss out his other arm to parry the strike of an assault from the other direction. He turned his head, both hands occupied, to see yet another demon bearing down on him as he was held in place, and, while regretting not grabbing a helmet before rushing off to assist his men, he winced for the inevitable rending of his flesh by its monstrous claws.

The incoming demon lurched, caught by some sort of projectile, and a woman whose armor he recognized as Cassandra’s pounced upon the demon he had been holding at bay with his shield, hacking madly at it until its existence dissolved into the snow. The Seeker immediately helped him in engaging the other demon as Varric Tethras, whose crossbow was the source of the aforementioned projectile, continued covering them from the slew of oncoming creatures with help from some mage that lay outside his field of vision. As bolts, both of electricity and from the crossbow, streamed past Cullen, another figure rushed through his periphery to the trapped troops, the blade of a greatsword trailing behind them.

As he caught his breath in the reprieve that Cassandra gave him, he quickly regarded the woman, or at least he thought it was a woman, who had passed him—she was tall, and swaddled in a large green coat and he could not recognize her through the haze of snow. Thick, shoulder-length brown hair obscured her face as it blew haphazardly in the wind, but she seemed to be able to see her targets as she expertly cleaved at a seeming wall of demons, forcing them away from the foot soldiers, all of whom ran back past him as quickly as they possibly could. Cullen began fighting again, called back to battle by a shade lunging at him. It froze solid before him, and Cullen shattered the demon easily.

He gave the apostate who had cast the ice spell, a bald elven man, a quick and somewhat awkward nod of thanks. He really didn’t have much experience fighting alongside mages— he was really more used to fighting _against_ them.

The bald elf did not acknowledge him, but instead rushed forward to call to the woman who was vanquishing the last shade on the opposite side of the rift. “Now! Seal it!” 

She flung a glowing hand up, and in an undulating flash of green the tear was gone. No more demons spilled forth, and the winds themselves seemed to calm as if they were soothed by the closing of the rift.

“It’s clear!” yelled one of the soldiers who had been trapped behind, and six robed forms slid down a bank of snow from a ridge and rushed past Cullen— the gaggle of mages moved slowly, supporting an elderly man as they hurried to relative safety through an archway behind them as hurriedly as they possibly could. “Go, go, go!”

Cullen turned to the Seeker, who had sheathed her sword beside him as the howling of the winds began to die down. “Lady Cassandra. You’ve…managed to close the rift? Well done.” He could not find any other words to sum up his feelings on the situation— an obstacle that seemed insurmountable was suddenly gone.

“Do not congratulate me, Commander,” she said in her thick Nevarran accent. She turned her sharp gaze towards the group of three that stood across the field of battle. The air between them still seemed inexplicably warped, as if it were permanently marred by the Veil’s tear. “This is the prisoner’s doing.”

“It is? I hope you’re right about her being able to mend the Breach— we can regroup and help her push forward to what’s left of the temple, but we may lose a lot of people getting her up there.” Cullen turned to one of the foot soldiers. “Find Lieutenant Derrick, or Ser Maucey, if her men are here. Tell whichever you find first that we’re regrouping and pushing forward. Fast!”

“Yes ser!” the soldier said, and she hurried up the path towards the route Derrick had used to extract the men. 

“I think she will be able to close it, yes,” Cassandra said. “But if you would like, you can articulate that sentiment to her yourself.” She made a brusque motion towards where the woman, Varric, whose shirt was wide open exposing his rather hairy chest in the biting air of the mountain, and the bald elven apostate stood. Both of the elves, Cullen realized, were very tall, just like a certain Dalish woman he had come across years ago, one who also fought with a greatsword.

“You’re becoming quite proficient at this,” observed the apostate, a small smile becoming evident on his face as Cullen and Cassandra approached the group of three.

The prisoner, who had stabbed her claymore into the ground, gave the mage an unsettlingly familiar laugh. “What can I say, Solas? I guess I’m just a natural,” she said in an unsettlingly familiar voice. She ran her fingers through the hair that fell into her face, revealing to Cullen the shaved patch of an undercut and her facial features. Her unsettlingly familiar facial features.

Cullen couldn’t really process whatever Varric was saying as he stared at the woman before him. Lavellan— and there was no dispute in his mind that she was, in fact, Adahlen Lavellan— looked very different with longer hair, but not much had changed about her face in the last few years. She looked undoubtedly older, and her prominent nose seemed slightly more crooked than it had been before, but Lavellan still had the same freckles, the same tattoos, the same large, dark eyes, and the same assured grin across her face as she had all those years ago.

She seemed unnaturally calm in the midst of the chaos, especially for a prisoner suspected of the most grievous wrongdoing imaginable. Yet, if Cassandra had released her from holding, the Seeker must have thought there to be at least a small possibility of her innocence— the thought was strangely relieving. He would allow himself that hope.

Cullen had legitimately thought he would never see Lavellan again, and now she stood before him as the world fell apart, potentially holding the power to mend it in a single hand. He had once thought of her as ‘singularly unfortunate,’ and he wondered if his words had been predictive as well as descriptive. Of all the ways and of all the places they could have reunited, here the two of them were.

Cassandra’s voice, more piercing than Varric’s, pulled Cullen out of his daze. “This is the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces.”

The elf swiveled to face Cullen and Cassandra, speaking before she had fully turned to look at them. “ _Aneth-ara_ , Commander— _Cullen_?” Lavellan’s voice raised in utter disbelief as her eyes focused on him. “Knight-Captain Cullen?”

“Oh, uhm…hello, Lavellan,” Cullen stuttered out in response, not sure how to engage with her. “This is, err, really awful _weather_ , isn’t it?”

Lavellan laughed, swallowing her chuckle by biting her lip, and an extremely out-of-place feeling, warm and fluttering, welled up in Cullen’s chest. “The worst,” Lavellan said, and he wasn’t quite sure if she was agreeing with him or commenting on the quality of his greeting.

“You two know each other?!” Cassandra tried not to seem surprised, but her face betrayed a startled curiosity.

Varric seemed intrigued, the Seeker’s shock fueling his fascination. “Well,” he schmoozed, “I can already sense a story here.”

“You, uhm, look well, all things considered. I particularly like,” Cullen's tongue felt clumsy in his mouth, and he motioned at the curtain of thick hair framing her face, “The, uhm, hair. Not that you didn’t have hair before, but it wasn’t as… I mean, it was nice then, but…” Cullen was vaguely aware of the fact that he was standing in the epicenter of a tremor that would shake the entirety of Thedas, but was spending his time falling over himself trying to talk to a woman.

“And to think I was incredibly afraid of you for about two days,” Lavellan murmured, deliberately audibly. She was much clearer and more direct when she added, “You look well, too, Cullen. I see you followed my advice and got that new job.”

Suddenly, a loud crack came from the sky and at once Lavellan cried out as if she was hurt, her hand flaring a malignant green as the disruption jerked her to her knees.

“Lavellan, are you—“ Cullen stepped forward, disquieted at once by her immediate situation and the fact that her pained expression was so familiar after so long, but Varric and the elf were closer and immediately were at her side as she collapsed forward into the snow.  
  
The other elf— Solas, Cullen had heard Lavellan call him— dropped to his knees to help her, propping her up with Varric reaching up to support her other side. “We need to stabilize the Breach,” Solas explained, looking at the sky. “Otherwise the mark will not stop hurting you.”

“And that’s probably the least of the problems that that fucking weird thing will cause,” Varric added as Lavellan, wincing, brushed the snow from her knees and straightened herself out. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Lavellan answered the dwarf, nodding as if she was trying to shake away the pain as she had the snow.

“Commander, ser,” the soldier he had sent back called as he jogged through the archway, “I found Ser Maucey and her men! I’ve seen a few of Derrick’s, but—”

Maucey cut him off as she came up behind the soldier. “Perimeter’s secured for now, Commander, and I've got everyone I can spare from the task here,” the Fereldan knight said as she approached with a fraction of the men she had travelled down the mountain with earlier. “This man here told me we need to push up towards the temple— I think I’ve got enough here to do that, if we move fast and don’t hit too many of the blighted demons.”

Cullen nodded. “Good— go ahead and support Seeker Pentaghast’s party. I will stay here and rally the men to gain control the valley.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Lavellan asked, wrenching her sword from where it was stuck in the ground. She seemed shaken after the shock she had received from the mark on her hand, and Cullen wondered how much the strange source of energy was affecting her health and body.

To answer her question, Cullen shook his head, though he wished he could follow her up to the temple and ensure her safety. He thought of her crying out and falling moments ago— she was in pain and needed protection, but Cassandra could provide that. Only he was in a position to organize the now-scattered troops. “No. The situation here is dire. Even if the main source of demons in this valley has been sealed,” he indicated the empty spot where the rift once was, “they are still crawling these hills, and we need to regroup. The situation could benefit from on-the-ground leadership.”

Lavellan nodded as she readjusted the greatsword on her back, testing it to make sure that the straps held. “I understand. Cassandra, let’s go.” She began to step towards the path.

“Lavellan,” Cullen found himself saying, “wait.” He reached out towards her, but retracted his hand when she spun to look at him.

She turned back, her hair whipping around her head in what was left of the wind. “Yes?”

He took a sharp inhale, and said, “Be careful, Adahlen. I would… I would very much like to see you when you come back.” 

She shot a small smile at him, but it was softer, lacking the edge that he remembered. “I would like that, too, Cullen.” Lavellan looked away at the snow, then back up at him again as her expression faded.

She bit her bottom lip, a nervous tick Cullen could remember after almost six years. “In…in case I don’t make it back—“ she started.

 “Don’t say tha—“ Cullen began, but Lavellan closed the gap between the two of them and cupped his cheek with her cold and calloused hand. In front of the Seeker, her companions and all the troops, the elven woman leaned up to kiss him. Her lips were as soft and warm as he remembered them, and Cullen immediately returned the gesture.

She began to pull away, but Cullen held her close, his gauntlet caressing her hair as he pressed her tattooed forehead to his own lips. “You’ll make it back and you know it, Lavellan.”

“You're right.” They separated, and Lavellan nodded to him as she turned to run up the path once more. “ _Dareth-shiral_ , Commander. You’ve got peace to keep, and justice to champion.” She looked up towards the Breach, and the smile on her face broadened, transforming into the grin of his memory as she buzzed with an indescribable energy, a turbulent radiance. “And me— I’m going to face down the biggest thing that there has ever been.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, it's done!
> 
> thank you all so much for reading, i really appreciate each and every one of you! i hope this was a Satisfying Fanfiction Experience for you. i really think i got about 75% of what i wanted to convey out of this which is really nice.
> 
> ...part of me wants to write some sequel vignettes because those would be fun (imagine that scene at Skyhold:..
> 
> "So, you work for me now?"  
> "...yes."  
> Cue like ten straight minutes of laughter from Lavellan) but idk if there would be any demand for them, so. also, i should probably write other things, like my bachelor's thesis, which will also probably be subpar but passable. i also have to continue my other DA story, and I am planning something else which may never see the light of internet day. 
> 
> but once again, thanks for reading! i hope i brought you like a solid hour and a half of entertainment.


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